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Medical translation

Had an excellent talk with Translators Without Borders today.[1] Both they and I are interested in working on a collaboration to translate medical articles first into simple English and then into other languages. Are there others here interested in helping? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:17, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd be interested in translation to Slovene language (could also translate to simple English). How would the work go then? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 23:13, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I have so far created this page Book:Health_care which is still a work in progress. I will than be moving a copy to simple English. This is currently simply a rearranged list of the top importance articles. Many of the top importance articles will also need improvement here on the main English wiki. Translation is being taken care of by translatorswithoutborders who I am sure could use help. If you email me I will add you email to the offline discussion. We are going to need people to not only translate but than to also Wikify and return to the appropriate language wiki. We also must make sure that the if the content already exists it is merged appropriately. This will require people involved in the medical aspects of the Wiki in question.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It might be interesting to talk to the Google Project folks and see if they have feedback. I have two different thoughts about initial targets:

• If you pick subjects that don't have corresponding articles, you're expanding the encyclopedia and you don't have to bother with merging.
• If you pick articles that are FA- or GA-quality, then you'll be pretty confident that you're translating something worth keeping.

Also, translating just introductions is a quick way to expand things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Where are these google translating folks? Would be good to get them involved. First we are looking at translating the GAs and FAs. Will than attempt to clean up the rest of the articles before translation. Help of course appreciated :-) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Google Project. I believe that one or two of the reviewers stuck around and might be able to answer questions about how things went. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks have emailed Tim Vickers. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Gluten intolerance and Coeliac disease

Gluten intolerance should not redirect to Coeliac disease, as it is a different clinical entity MaenK.A._Talk 11:37, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, might want to ask for reasoning at user talk:Wouterstomp (the creator of the redirect), though the article cites doi:10.1159/000116768 to back up the assertion that

This condition has several other names, including: cœliac disease (with œ ligature), c(o)eliac sprue, non-tropical sprue, endemic sprue, gluten enteropathy or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, and gluten intolerance.

We'd need a better source to negate that assertion.LeadSongDog come howl! 14:24, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I've just looked at doi:10.1159/000116768, and it doesn't support that passage from our article - it doesn't mention these various alternative names. (I can email it to anyone who doesn't have access.) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:26, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

After a search around, I still can't seem to find the distinction. Perhaps you could educate me, Madhero88? Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:31, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

I found this:

Coeliac disease, or gluten-sensitive enteropathy, is only one aspect of a range of possible manifestations of gluten sensitivity. Although neurological manifestations in patients with established coeliac disease have been reported since 1966, it was not until 30 years later that, in some individuals, gluten sensitivity was shown to manifest solely with neurological dysfunction.

Hadjivassiliou M, Sanders DS, Grünewald RA, Woodroofe N, Boscolo S, Aeschlimann D (March 2010). "Gluten sensitivity: from gut to brain" (PDF). Lancet Neurol. 9 (3): 318–30. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(09)70290-X. PMID 20170845. S2CID 206159061.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

but have no idea how mainstream this is. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 14:55, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

See also

• Gluten sensitivity is a systemic autoimmune disease that occurs in genetically susceptible individuals on ingesting gluten. It can appear at any age, then becoming a permanent condition. It is more frequent in women, as happens with other autoimmune diseases. Celiac disease is the intestinal form and the most important manifestation among a set of gluten-induced autoimmune pathologies that affect different systems.

- Hernandez-Lahoz C, Mauri-Capdevila G, Vega-Villar J, Rodrigo L (2011 Sep 1). "Neurogluten: patología neurológica por intolerancia al gluten" [Neurological disorders associated with gluten sensitivity]. Rev Neurol (in Spanish). 53 (5): 287–300. PMID 21796607. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

• Celiac disease, or gluten sensitive enteropathy is a relatively common disease of the jejunum, leading to malabsorption. It is an immune mediated disease, induced by gluten on the grounds of a specific genetic makeup. After gluten exposition immune processes are induced mainly by T-cells, causing typical intestinal and extra intestinal manifestations. The diagnosis of celiac disease is based on jejunal biopsy histology and the presence of antibodies against endomysium and tissue transglutaminase.

- Vereckei E, Szodoray P, Poor G, Kiss E (2011 Apr). "Genetic and immunological processes in the pathomechanism of gluten-sensitive enteropathy and associated metabolic bone disorders". Autoimmun Rev. 10 (6): 336–40. doi:10.1016/j.autrev.2010.12.001. PMID 21172460. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link).

I read those to mean that the genetic predisposition is revealed after exposure to gluten, which then triggers an immune response and (SYN?: at some point) an autoimmune response. The disease process is cyclic, but the intolerance to gluten is seen as a precursor to the autoimmune disorder. One might hypothesize a child (prescreened for the genetics) who by some means manages to avoid significant gluten exposure and never develops from intolerance to autoimmunity. (My speculation: This might happen spontaneously in a culture where corn, rice or tubers are overwhelmingly the predominant source of dietary starches.) Still, celiac is overwhelmingly the most important complication of the intolerance and itself precedes further complications. I'm not sure how relevant a distinct gluten intolerance article would be. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

This thing was demonstrated by researchers recently gathered in a symposium about the disease, I cant find all those papers yet, but i ll provide you with some soon, and As an example you can see the names of these articles suggests that And you can see the conclusion of this paper as "This study shows that the two gluten-associated disorders, CD and GS, are different clinical entities, and it contributes to the characterization of GS as a condition associated with prevalent gluten-induced activation of innate, rather than adaptive, immune responses in the absence of detectable changes in mucosal barrier function." and here: ""Non-celiac gluten intolerance" may exist, but no clues to the mechanism were elucidated." you may as well check this abstract. -- MaenK.A._Talk 16:33, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

This is a readable recent review

Currently, a number of morphological, functional and immunological disorders have been considered under the umbrella of [gluten sensitivity] that miss one or more of the key CD criteria (enteropathy, associated HLA haplotypes and presence of anti-TG2 antibodies), but respond to gluten exclusion.

Troncone R, Jabri B (June 2011). "Coeliac disease and gluten sensitivity". J. Intern. Med. 269 (6): 582–90. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02385.x. PMID 21481018. S2CID 41638756.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

"Gluten intolerance" may be being used to cover any disorder, including CD, caused by ingestion of gluten, while "gluten sensitivity" covers all but CD. Not sure. That's my reading of this so far, and in light of this title: Serological Tests in Gluten Sensitivity (Nonceliac Gluten Intolerance). If that's the case, we may end up with Gluten intolerance as a disambiguation page pointing to Coeliac disease and Gluten sensitivity. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

That review might suffice for an article on nonceliac gluten-sensitive enteropathy (NCGSE), but because that condition is so rare compared with the more common GS-as part-of-CD I would not think that we want to lump the two together in a GS article that would mostly repeat parts of the CD article, and indeed question if the dab page would be more helpful than a "not to be confused with". LeadSongDog come howl! 17:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

"Gluten sensitivity" is, apparently, now being used to describe a disease distinct from coeliac disease. It has its own article. If "gluten intolerance" covers both of these entities, and I think it might, then it makes sense to me to make Gluten intolerance a disambiguation page pointing to both articles. But I don't care enough to pursue this. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough. At times food intolerance has been something of a wp:BATTLEGROUND for CAM mongering, so this fork suggestion pushed some buttons. I think the "sensitivity" term is inclusive of CD, not distinct from it, and therein lies the problem for the articles or for the DAB page. According to PMID 16782524 the "intolerance" term excludes allergies. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

A careful read of the Lancet article, or any of the above, I think, makes it pretty clear "gluten sensitivity" is being used against, as distinct from, coeliac disease. Gluten sensitivity is fairly explicit. I completely share your trepidation here. Reading some of that was evoking Wakefieldish horrors in me. But it's being pushed by multiple authors, in multiple teams from multiple locations, and I don't think we can ignore it. I'd love to see a serious expert take that whole garden under their wing, but that's definitely not me. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 20:04, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

True allergy is normally defined as requiring the presence of IgE antibodies, which means that none of these (not CD, not GS, not any other variants) are true allergies.

I believe that "intolerance" and "sensitivity" are normally interchangeable words in the field of allergies, and while they may be defined differently by some sources for this particular antigen, normally "gluten intolerance" and "gluten sensitivity" would be identical, and would include all possible manifestations of any non-IgE-mediated immune response to gluten. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:35, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have some knowledge of this area. Celiac disease and Gluten sensitivity which is often refered to as Gluten intolerance are two different things, with different testing done to diagnose them. I know a lot of people who have gluten intolerance which is often diagnosed during food intolerance testing (often something naturopaths recommend to those who see them when people have food issues but on the other hand it's something many doctors dont believe in). It all ties into the debate of "food intolerances' (other then true allergies) existance being real or not. Doctors use the other allergy test to diagnose "true" allergies (allergies have got to with two different antibody reactions as WatamIdoing said). So Gluten sensitivity can actually be a controversional condition thou many do have it.

I dont know if there is a connection thou between it and being more likely to end up with Celiac disease even if there is (eg maybe those who carry the Celiac gene are more likely to get gluten intolerance? maybe gluten intolerance can happens before Celiac disease??), I think it would be wise to keep the two conditions apart cause to put them together would really confuse things and bring a controversional diagnoses into a clearer area thou some ideas even in the field of Celiac disease have undergone some changes.

(sorry I dont have references but just know that is a general consensus view elsewhere in that area). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Taniaaust1 (talk • contribs) 10:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

(←) There is no such thing as a gene for coeliac disease. Gluten intolerance is the development of symptoms after exposure to gluten, and I suspect that this is to the exclusion of coeliac disease which can be diagnosed with serology and histology. Some people (Pdeitiker (talk · contribs) amongst others) will claim that there are people with clinical symptoms who have positivity to older types of gluten serology (e.g. anti-gliadin) who anecdotally respond to gluten withdrawal. This is actually a controversial area, and Pdeitiker has created a large walled garden of articles, mostly built on WP:MEDRS-incompatible sources, expounding on these subjects. JFW | T@lk 17:20, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there is sort of a "gene for celiac disease". That is, there are genes (most importantly, HLA DQ2) that give people a predisposition to developing the disease. If I've got it straight in my mind, almost no one without these genetic variants will end up with the disease, but the vast majority of the people with the gene variant won't end up with the disease anyway. Calling it "the celiac gene" might be a little sloppy for formal writing, but it's no worse that referring to "the breast cancer gene", and I think we all know what's meant by it in this kind of casual discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

yeah, I agree I did put it a little sloppy.

This site is a general public site so I try to put things in a way in which most are going to understand. I was refering to being DQ2/DQ8 postive. This test is nowdays often recommended to rule out Celiac disease if there is suspicion. As previous poster stated, negative DQ2/DQ8 virtually excludes Celiac disease. I will continue to refer to this as the celiac gene rather then DQ2/DQ8 as this isnt a medical site and most will understand that more. Not all who carry predisposition to breast cancer get breast cancer either. --Taniaaust1 (talk) 05:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DQ2/DQ8 seems to be a sine qua non for the disease, but most people with DQ2/DQ8 don't get coeliac disease, as rightly stated, and there are numerous other risk factors that - together with the genetic makeup - determine the risk of disease. I would therefore struggle to refer to any gene as the "coeliac gene". Gluten intolerance, gluten-sensitive diseases, and coeliac disease are probably on some sort of continuum, but many people are doubtful about the existence of the gluten neuropathies (almost everything written on the subject comes from a single group in Sheffield, UK). JFW | T@lk 22:09, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Long list of causes

A user DrMircro is adding long list of causes using poor quality sources such as seen here Hepatitis#Causes --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

We have this guideline here that touches on the issue Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Embedded lists --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:06, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

We've had multiple chats with and about this person and his persistent difficulty with using high-quality sources (e.g., sources published during this century, or secondary sources from any decade). Is it time for an WP:RFC/U? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The statement that started this discussion is incorrect. Doc James deleted a long list of cited review articles. This edit has been reverted. DrMicro (talk) 20:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes I crossed out part of my concern and reverted myself. There is a mix of primary and secondary sources. I guess the main question is where are these lists best put... Doc James (talk contribs · email) 21:43, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the above. I merely wanted to put the record straight so there would be no confusion in the future. And I agree with Doc James. I am not sure if the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Embedded lists: Long sequences is the best option here. Other opinions on this matter would be appreciated.DrMicro (talk) 22:31, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

We are having a productive chat on my talk page. He has begun using review articles / medical textbook. I guess the main question is how we should organize long lists of causes. My suggestion is that we do something similar to what is found on the article Shortness of breath and Anaphylaxis. We discussion the main causes in prose for giving some context of how important each is. Than we create an article called "List of causes of X" such as List of causes of shortness of breath Comments? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The relevant guideline appears to be Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Embedded lists: Long sequences. This is the format in use.DrMicro (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

The first and most important thing is to decide whether a laundry list of every possible cause, no matter how minor, actually belongs in Wikipedia at all. The ability to source a fact does not make that fact WP:DUE. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

That is a very reasonable question.

Drugs are probably the single greatest identifiable group of agents known to be associated with this condition: scores if not hundreds of these having been shown to cause this problem. Only a fraction of those know are listed here. These alone could probably justify a separate page. As to the utility of such a listing, it used to be the case that lists of drugs causing conditions such as hepatitis used to be 'firewalled' (available only to paid up subscribers) despite their universal utility. The situation has improved at least in part because of Google - and probably also Wikipedia.

Parasites definitely belong on such a list: several are listed as class 1 carcinogens (the same category as cigarettes) by the WHO. The liver fluke lives up to its name by residing within the liver (frequently with fatal consequences). Viruses belong on this list: the classical hepatitis viruses (A, B, C, D, E) would be difficult to leave out. Several (B and C) have also been classified as class I carcinogens. Yellow fever was the first virus shown to cause hepatitis. The haemorrhagic fever viruses (Ebola, Marburg and others) use the liver as their primary site of replication. Protozoa belong on this list: Leishmania and Plasmodium both use the liver as their primary site of replication. Amoebic abscesses are common in the tropics. Bacteria belong here because congenital syphilis typically involves the liver. The liver is a primary site of replication for Bartonella. The differential diagnosis for granulomatous hepatitis includes all the listed fungi and several of the bacteria as well as a non trivial number of non infectious causes (sarcoid being one). A number of the bacteria - including Listeria - cause significant liver disease in the immunocompromised - diabetics, organ transplants, leukaemia and others.

The other non infectious causes have a number of common and important cases. Cardiac cirrhosis is well known. Eclampsia typically presents abnormal liver function tests. Vascular insufficiency - including Budd Chiari syndrome - is well known with several different operations having being devised for this condition alone. Leaving out alcohol IMHO would be difficult to justify. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is an increasingly commonly recognised problem. Fatal cases of this condition have been reported in association with massive weight loss. The list of genetic and congenital conditions of unknown aetiology is anything but complete here. Many of these give paediatric physicians and surgeons serious difficulties.

The essential problem here is that many, many agents can cause this condition. If anything this listing is far from comprehensive let alone encyclopedic. Virtually all the agents currently listed have been associated with fatal outcomes due to massive hepatic necrosis. IMHO a very strong case would have to be made to leave any group of these agents out of a listing.DrMicro (talk) 12:03, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

A possible alternative instead of a new page might be a series of tables with one for each group. The drug table could be divided by their chemical nature. I'm not sure how this would compare with the alternative proposed. Again constructive suggestions would be appreciated.DrMicro (talk) 13:57, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The number of agents than can cause hepatitis isn't just a problem for hepatitis. There are similar problems with urinary tract infections, pneumonia, septicaemia and numerous other conditions. There are literally scores of different organisms that can cause these conditions. A consistent method of presentation for these seems a sensible idea.DrMicro (talk) 14:21, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and the list of things that cause Fatigue (medicine) is basically the entire table of contents of a drug forumlary plus half of a medical dictionary. Encyclopedias are supposed to summarize and hit the high points, not include everything. The job of an encyclopedia is to provide a little bit of information about every subject, not every detail about any given subject. An encyclopedia is a great example of the concept of being "mile wide, but only an inch deep".

I like what you're saying about "common and important causes". Presumably, common and important causes are ones that if you picked up a five-page overview on hepatitis, they'd be naming those common and important causes, and we want to produce something similar to that type of source. We should be able to name stellar sources for all common and important causes. In fact, we should be able to name the same stellar source for them (or at least for all common and important causes that are drugs, and then another stellar source for all common and important causes that are parasites, and so forth). So as a basic rule of thumb, if we're having to reach to a case study, a paper from more than 10 years ago, any original paper, or any other non-stellar, non-secondary, non-independent source to support a given cause, then that cause probably isn't common enough or important enough for us to mention at all in the hepatitis articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DrMicro, not everything that causes abnormal liver function tests is hepatitis. Indeed, you mention cirrhose cardiaque, which histologically is not an inflammatory state. Please consider the framework you are placing this in. JFW | T@lk 22:59, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Asexuality as a sexual orientation, with regard to WP:MEDRS and other things

Hey, everyone. We really need outside opinions about whether or not to list asexuality as a sexual orientation in the Sexual orientation article and Template:Sexual orientation, as well as how to go about mentioning that it is considered a sexual orientation by some researchers (though still not by the general medical community).

And I hate to beg, but please do help out. The discussion is being had at Template talk:Sexual orientation#Is there evidence that Asexuality is a sexual orientation? Flyer22 (talk) 03:17, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Guys, I want to stress that asexuality is not just a sexology topic. Like all sexual orientations and sexualities, it has to do with mental and sexual health, and there is debate among researchers over whether it should be categorized as a sexual dysfunction, which is why it relates to this project. Consensus on sexual orientation and sexualities are made by both the psychological and medical community, and the two communities greatly overlap. And right now, we are trying to figure out if it is valid to list asexuality as a sexual orientation with the sources calling it such...per the WP:MEDRS criteria. Flyer22 (talk) 17:52, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Yale grad students

We have a group of Yale grad students editing that I have begun listing here Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Classes_editing#Yale_students. I do not know how many there are or who there prof is but am looking into it. Please add further students to the list.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:28, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I haven't been following this recent student editing situation, but I once mentored a class of 30 psychiatric nursing students through an assignment here. I believe all students sent here on assignment ought to be (a) tested beforehand by their tutor for their grasp of MEDRS, DUE and citation generation, and (b) instructed to propose all edits on the article talk page before making them. If that had been done in the case I'm referring to, there would have been no dramas, for what it's worth. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:05, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I have begun putting together a set of recommendations from us to the WMF/Global Education Program. User:Jmh649/Recommendations If others could add, comment, etc would appreciate it.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:06, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Anthony. Discussing all edits on talk page is too harsh; many articles don't have enough people watch listing them and thus a large number of these talk page proposed text requests/suggestions would get ignored. It is overly and unnecessarily harsh in my view. Your other suggestions sound good, they should have a basic grasp of how wikipedia works before being set loose, they don't have to have mastered wikipedia though.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:28, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm recommending they propose all edits on the talk page and come back the next day to make the edit or, if there are any, respond to other editor's comments. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:41, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that would be good. I have reverted again an editor at malaria from Yale who just keeps trying to hammer in his text without addressing any of the concerns on his own talk pages (editing under both an IP and a user name) or on the malaria talk page.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:57, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Class editing of medical/neuroscience articles

Hi. I'm seeing some potential problems from Biol373.cwru (talk · contribs) - basically pasting in entire class papers over existing articles - but I currently have a final exam to create. Could someone deal with this? Thanks! (At least some of the articles in question are tagged as being for WikiProject Medicine as well as Neuroscience.) Allens (talk) 17:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up, Allen. To be honest, there's nothing to deal with. The massive expansions of the stubs Single-unit recording, Neurokinin A and Olfactory tubercle into sizeable articles are very welcome (unless there's any suspicion of copyright violation - but I don't think so). The Olfactory tubercle article has been cleaned up and wikified by a couple of editors, and the same will happen to the other two articles quite soon. That's how it works on the wiki. The only thing I'd worry about is that the students may not know about WP:DYK and it would be a shame to miss out on the recognition. Perhaps someone can nominate on their behalf? --RexxS (talk) 18:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Quite welcome; I hadn't spotted how much stubs the earlier articles were (and I tend to think that even if something is originally a stub an expansion should try not to discard all of the earlier material). (I'd thought Do You Know was only for entirely new articles?) Thanks! Allens (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

DYK is for 4-fold expansions too. The user is responding and the articles have been cleaned up, no emergency here. Fences&Windows 20:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

One of the things I love about this group is that when you see a possible problem and you're out of time, you can just post a note here and someone will look into it with an open mind. You all are the best. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Should the lede of Chronic fatigue syndrome include "multiple psychological and physiological factors may contribute to the development and maintenance of symptoms"? I know little about this condition, though I've read a few reviews in the last couple of days. My superficial view is, using the quoted phrase in the lede gives undue emphasis to weakly supported speculation. (Of course it should be, and is, covered in the body of the article.) I fear that the phrase is being held in place because it offends patients and advocates, and is making some kind of point. I would appreciate other views. Talk page discussion is here. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:36, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think individual content disputes in that particular article should be brought to this page. There are already loads of people bickering over there. I don't think the quoted phrase is any stronger or weaker than many other pronouncements about CFS made elsewhere in the article. I don't think it offends either.

Oh, and by the way, to edit chronic fatigue syndrome and related articles you need an asbestos overcoat. JFW | T@lk 20:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback here and on the talk page. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 09:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I do think it would be useful to get some fresh blood in the CFS articles, so to speak. Right now it is mostly CFS advocates, a few interested parties without medical backgrounds such as me and WLU, and the occasional MD like JFW. And yes, you do need a thick skin to edit the article. --sciencewatcher (talk) 20:55, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Resolved. [2] --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

A very nice paper about us

[3] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. Is there a place where medical journal articles related to Wikipedia are collected? It would be interesting to have an article about Wikipedia in the medical literature. It could be a sub-article of Reliability of Wikipedia. Nephron  T|C 16:08, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

There is this [4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Wikipedia and medicine. --Scott Alter (talk) 17:01, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Medical articles at WP:GAN

Hi everyone! You may all know about this already, but there were several medical articles nominated at WP:GAN recently, all by the same person as part of a university class. I am hoping that there are a few of you that might be willing to look over the articles and either do a full GA review or post comments on the talk page regarding their adherence to WP:MEDRS. The articles still needing review are:

• Spina bifida (Doc James)
• Aging brain
• Autism spectrum
• Dysthymia (Doc James)

The majority of reviewers at GA don't have an in-depth knowledge of the reliable sources guidelines specifically for medical articles, so they may miss major issues with primary/secondary sources, reliance on outdated/unreliable journals, etc., which is a major reason I'm hoping some med-focused editors can help out with these reviews. Thanks in advance for any help you can give (although I know you've been dealing with a lot of other university-related editing, so if you don't have time, that is understandable!), Dana boomer (talk) 19:23, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Dana. Will have a look.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:18, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Wonderful! Dana boomer (talk) 02:28, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Long-term, undetected misrepresentations in Ginkgo biloba

Would anyone be interested in looking through Ginkgo biloba? I happened upon it today, and noticed that it claimed that ginkgo "improved cognition" in multiple sclerosis patients. The cited source, PMID 17439907, says the exact opposite (that ginkgo "did not show a statistically significant improvement in cognitive function"). That's a bald-faced, outright dishonest misrepresentation with the potential to mislead readers about their health. It was apparently inserted in October 2009 and has remained undetected since in this relatively high-profile article. I'm planning to look through for more such problems with the article, but as my time is currently limited I'd welcome anyone else interested in a source check for this article. And Happy Holidays! :) MastCell ^Talk 21:14, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes there are a ton of articles regarding alt med products that have these issues. People add every primary source they can find to promot a POV. One of the worst pages I have seen is Medicinal mushrooms Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:20, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Merging stubs

Cross-posted from Project Anatomy. Please reply there.

What is the prevailing opinion on many short articles vs. fewer longer ones? Does every structure really need a separate article? I'm sure the issue is broader than this, but because I am interested in the hand, this is what caught my eye. I would like to merge, for example, all of the extrinsic muscles of the hand into a single article. At present, each of the muscles have their own separate page. Nearly all of them are a very short stub-class article and a lot of information is duplicated. They have been around for several years in this state and it seems likely they will stay that way.
— User:Taylornate

Yes merging is a good idea. Most diseases deserve there own article but not every muscle and nerve.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:38, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

http://www.polygenicpathways.co.uk/

What do people think of this as a ref and link? This user has been adding it to a number of pages Special:Contributions/Cjc22 Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It is mostly Mr Carter's personal website with a lot of Google ads. Remove. JFW | T@lk 06:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Linkspam from COI editor. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:25, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Worthless spam, adding no value at all to the articles. As these links are the only contributions from the account, it is clear the account is only being used to promote that website. Cjc22 was warned about COI in April but has ignored talk page messages. I've left a clear message today, and I'd suggest that if he continues to add spam links he needs to be blocked until such time as he agrees to stop. A block could be made either by an uninvolved admin reading here or via a report to WP:AIV. The Wikipedia:Spam blacklist or User:XLinkBot would also be available as a last resort, in the event of block evasion. --RexxS (talk) 00:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

LinkSearch shows the link currently is only in Causes of schizophrenia (and some talk pages). In that article, the link is used as a reference, but it looks like WP:REFSPAM to me. It was added in this edit by an IP who has a total of three edits, all in June 2010 and all related to adding that link. I'll leave it for someone from here to remove the refspam. The spamming, while irritating, is minor compared with the cases for which the blacklist or XLinkBot are used. The simple solution is to warn the user, and block if repeated. I added the official warning to the user's talk ({{uw-spam2}}). Johnuniq (talk) 01:32, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Pneumothorax

Pneumothorax is on FAC - comments much welcomed on the FAC page. JFW | T@lk 10:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Merging silent stroke into stroke

Wondering if anyone else would be willing to comment here Talk:Stroke#Merge_Silent_stroke --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Autoimmune disease

Nobody seems to care about the Autoimmune disease. Can it be deleted? Or is somebody willing to solve the many links to disambiguation pages? Night of the Big Wind _talk 22:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:There is no deadline, not even for solving dab links. If it's important to you to have it done right now, then it is doubtless important enough to do it yourself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I miss the essential knowledge to do that in a usefull way. I would probably turn the article is a disaster area. And please, notice the smiley. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Doctorwolfie (talk · contribs) has been doing a fair bit of work here recently. I'd have a chat with him in the first instance. JFW | T@lk 01:27, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I have done some MaenK.A._Talk 12:11, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I've fixed a few more, but I am no biochemist. If someone in the know could tell me what "HAI" is that would be great; I suspect it's meant to read "HA1" and refers to the influenza-like peptide. Either way, WP has no article on it. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 12:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

You guys are great! Keep up the good work! Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Tasks for Non-Medics

Hello, everyone, I'm new on Wikipedia. I have an interest in medicine and hope to pursue it as a career,and would like to contribute to WikiProject Medicine in any way possible. However, I am limited by the fact that I am still a teenager, and thus have not even started university, let alone gained a medical degree. Until such a time as I can contribute with tangible and verifiable information, what can you suggest that a person with no medical knowledge (such as myself) might do to contribute to the project? Benjitheijneb (talk) 20:05, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I suggest looking over the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine#Other_ideas. One idea that really anyone could do is this: Go to this list (warning: will be slow to load) and see if the clean up templates are still valid. Pick a section on that page and work your way down the list. For example, under "Articles lacking sources", the article Third ventricle has been tagged as having zero bibliographic citations to reliable sources since 2007, but if you look at the article, there's one listed. So clearly the {{Unreferenced|date=November 2007}} tag at the top is outdated, and just needs someone to remove it.

If you're not sure about whether a tag is okay, then you can ask here, or just skip it and move on to the next one. If you think you can solve the problem (sometimes the tag itself explains how to do that, or links to a page that does), then try to solve the problem (and then remove the tag, if you're pretty sure that your efforts worked).

Good luck, and thank you for the offer to help! WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

One of the best things any person not familiar with medical jargon can do is read any medical article and point out material which is too technical - we should be trying to make our material as accessible as possible (without sacrificing accuracy) Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:51, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both for your input! I did check the Other ideas section, but I thought it best to ask anyway for specific jobs a non-medic may fulfil (for example, I wouldn't want to try assessing appropriate sources without a knowledge of the sources in the first place). I would of course be happy to help clean up the articles. And Casliber's point on accessibility is one which I had not been aware Wikipedia had been proposing; I had always thought Wikipedia intended for its readers to look up the appropriate vocabulary. Well, I'd be glad to help with that too. Benjitheijneb (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Large scale student editing assignment due to be repeated.

Happy New Year folks.

I've written an essay about the recent psychology student editing assignment: User:Colin/A large scale student assignment – what could possibly go wrong? I'd appreciate your comments and opinions on the essay talk page. In particular, suggestions for alternative assignments for this class would be very helpful.

The assignment is due to be repeated with minor changes beginning the 28th January and ending 9th April. I think it is important that the WP:MED community voice whether this is a good idea or not, and suggest any necessary changes either to this assignment or to student assignments in general. It might be best to keep comments together on the talk page.

-- Colin°^Talk 13:19, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

This class for the coming semester has been canceled. The prof. in question does however state that his data looks "positive". Hopefully we will be able to review it at some point. Thanks to Colin for all his hard work and spearheading this.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:21, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

January 2012 collaboration of the month: Pneumothorax

I took the liberty of changing the collaboration of the month to Pneumothorax, currently a featured article candidate which could use anybody's help/input. --WS (talk) 13:20, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

A pharma company making corrections in entries?

A certain pharmaceutical company has some safety concerns about some of the Wiki pages related to their products they feel should be corrected. They want to work with Wikipedia to find a short- and long-term solution. What do you think is the best way to get the safety information to readers?

Other options could include:

1) Name someone from the company who would have a profile on Wikipedia and would act as a spokesperson.

2) Anyone can make those changes if they reveal conflict of interest in the edit history.

Your feedback is much appreciated.

NCurse _work 16:06, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The best way to get information to readers is to find good quality sources that comply with WP:MEDRS and then summarise the sources in the article along with the cited source. Or in the case of a potential COI, to place a suggested edit on the relevant article talk page, and wait for comments. --RexxS (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

If a single named person in the company is going to do the editing, it makes most sense for that person to have an account with a userpage that clearly states their conflict of interest. I don't think individual edit summaries need COI tagging.

Generally, uncontroversial edits should be allowed even when the account is managed by a drug company employee, but controversial edits should be discussed on the talk page and possibly actioned by others. All edits, as RexxS rightly said, should be based on MEDRS-compatible sources. JFW | T@lk 20:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

They must use secondary sources such as review articles or major textbooks. If they paste the concerns properly formatted on the talk page I would be happy to guide them through the process.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. There's no footnote off that statement that excludes people who happen to have jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. We really desperately need knowledgeable people to correct errors. That said, they might like to read WP:MEDCOI and see if some of those drama-reducing strategies will appeal to them. I'd also suggest that if someone is doing a significant amount of work, that the person introduce himself or herself either here or at WT:PHARM. They're both good places to get practical help and to grab extra eyes if you find yourself in an unexpected dispute.

Also, they might find it useful to at least glance over WP:MEDMOS to notice things like our desire not to be a drug formulary and not to provide dosing information. Some of our stylistic choices (e.g., omitting dosing information) are designed to reduce the likelihood of safety concerns. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback! I guess the consensus is that if someone from a pharma company wants to make a correction in an entry about a pharma product (no matter whether it belongs to their own company or to another), they should cite reviews, peer-reviewed papers, reliable resources and leave a message on the discussion page of the entry or on the pharma project page claiming that they are from this pharma company therefore all conflicts of interest are revealed. NCurse _work 10:14, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we should try and standardize the 'Edit summary' to highlight potentially contentious edits and have a system to review those edits systematically (panel of three editors, or some litmus test to ensure integrity of article is maintained. I am new to the community, so this process may already exist, in which case I will leave it to those more experienced to point us in the right direction. Laith Bustani (talk) 14:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment! I'm not sure another group or committee is needed. Wikipedia should still be a community based encyclopedia which means anyone can edit, but in some cases (for the sake of transparency), some edits should be discussed in the edit history. It means all of us could supervise those edits coming from pharma. What do you think? NCurse _work 08:04, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi NCurse (I'm answering you after reading your LinkedIn post :-) ). I worked for pharma industry and I'm presently a strategy consultant for it, so I immediately declare my eventual COI :-). To resolve the issue, I feel we should have to rely on the Wikipedia rules, which say that a) anybody can edit a Wikipedia article b) edits have to be referenced c) any edit can be counteredited when found not sufficiently supported by bibliography and/or has an evident promotional intent. On the other side, I feel that pharma executives are the most entitled and knowledgeable persons to make edits on the drugs their company commercialize. On this principles, I feel that editing should have to be self-regulated as per the Wikipedia rules; but that any promotional intent can be individuated and criticized by other Wiki authors (not excluding competitor pharma companies' executives :-) ). Hope this helps.--Ferdinando Scala (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Many thanks for your insights, Ferdinando! You are right, that's clear. Of course, pharma companies can edit any entries they want, but as they approached us in the first place to get some feedback about their own plans, we came up with this solution (namely, they would identify themselves revealing COI, but can make any edits they want). I guess this is the perfect consensus, somewhere between your point and ours. What do you think? NCurse _work 13:50, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

I have been working with a Steering Group consisting of physicians, pharmacists and medical people from the industry to look at how people can make updates to articles adhering to Wikipedia standards and at the same time stay within pharma industry guidelines for communicating to the public. As you can imagine there are some areas needing interpretation - for example, the degree of responsibility someone from the industry has for an article they have updated. When considered, the answers to most questions like this are pretty clear (as you say the self-regulation aspect of Wikipedia is a given and our suggested approach is also transparency and declaration of any potential COI) but we thought there was merit in offering guidance because we know that many people with knowledge are currently reluctant to contribute. We were considering turning this into a Wikipedia task force to open up the discussion - what do you think? (My own COI - I run a digital medical agency working with pharma) Pkwesley (talk) 09:06, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Turning this into a Wikipedia task force to open up the discussion would be the right thing to do. How shall we do that? NCurse _work 14:48, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

See WP:MEDTF for the usual process. What matters most is having more than two or three people interested in doing that on a long-term basis. If it's just a couple of people, then just talk here and save yourselves the bother of creating a special page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

If people are getting paid to make changes to improve the appearance of the payers products that however might be a concern. Some pharmaceutical companies have received some bad press for doing this in the past.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:29, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

WP:PAID editing isn't prohibited on our end. Whitewashing is a problem no matter what the industry or financial arrangement is, but correction of outright errors should be honored even if the person is being paid. Along those lines, I'd like to repeat the fact that the English Wikipedia encourages people to voluntarily disclose such relationships, but it does not require it. This is mostly because there is no method of enforcing any such requirement, but it is also partly because we don't want to give unscrupulous shills a structural advantage over honest people who are concerned about their privacy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes if people are adding balanced reliable information referenced to high quality sources that is not a concern.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:35, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

In terms of reliable sources, what is everyone's opinion on the matter of pharma companies (having declared COI) using their own published information as a source? Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 00:29, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Technically, a source needs to be only strong enough to support its claim. A personal blog is actually good enough, if all you're trying to support is something trivial like "Joe Bloggs once posted the following words:". Pharma sources are therefore "good enough"—for limited purposes. They fall under our rules about self-published sources, and often they will be primary sources as well.

So they might be "good enough", but they're not the best possible sources for almost any technical/medical claim. We'd far rather see a good review article or textbook cited (even if that publication was authored by an employee of the same company) than the manufacturer's website or prescribing information. Additionally, readers seem to be more impressed by journal articles than by something obviously published by the manufacturer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

There is a good chance that if what you are adding is health related and it is not supported by high quality sources (review articles or major textbooks) it will get removed. Specifically self published material by the pharmaceutical industry is generally not a reliable source for medicine or pharmacology.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

It depends on the source. The prescriber's insert is technically self-published, but I've never seen one reverted. Some sort of direct-to-consumer website would be considered suspect for many purposes, but it would not be nearly as suspect as a website promoting herbal extracts or one claiming conspiracy theories.

Also, we're supposed to be smart about this. It is in the best interests of our readers to have a variety of types of sources listed in an article, because not every reader is capable of understanding a scientific paper. Assuming that the content in question is entirely accurate and fairly basic, there's nothing wrong with citing a lay-accessible website rather than the fanciest scientific source we can find. A citation to a basic FAQ page at a cancer charity website or health agency website is totally adequate for a simple statement like, "Leukemia is characterized by the presence of too many white blood cells". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Amazing feedback, thank you! Now I'm going to send this to the company that contacted me in the first place. NCurse _work 08:08, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Controversy over reviews

On Talk:Pomegranate and the Talk:Cranberry a discussion is taking place pertaining to 1) the health effects of the aforementioned fruit and berry, and 2) whether the reviews could belong to the ‘further reading’ – section? I am hoping for a larger community input. Do you have time to take a look? Thank you. Granateple (talk) 19:21, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Reviews do not belong in "further reading" but belong in the article being used as references.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Reviews are most appropriate as references, in the sense that they are good sources for medical encyclopedia articles. Using "futher reading" to hide POV/FRINGE material is often bad. JFW | T@lk 10:19, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

JFW summed it up well. I find I very rarely see an article which needs afurther reading section. Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:21, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You have a different opinion than me regarding which publications could be suited for the ‘further reading” – section. That’s okay and I must take that into consideration. Thank you for your input. Pretty advanced research (on a molecular and biochemical level) is emerging these days (last 10 years) related to the Pomegranate. Try “Pomegranate Cancer” or “Pomegranate Prostate cancer” on PubMed. Something is not necessarily fringe just because it is new. Granateple (talk) 19:58, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the main summary here is that "reviews articles" should be used as refs not as further reading. Further reading sections are optional BTW. The guidance I keep in mind when I write is that Wikipedia is not a collection of external links.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:20, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And a summary of all that can go in the article proper, can't it? Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you, Doc James, Wikipedia should not be a collection of links, but all is not black and white. And I agree with you, Casliber, a summary can go into the article proper, as you say. Granateple (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

There are times when listing good sources under ==Further reading== is just fine. For example, if you've got three excellent review articles, you might only need one or two to support your article content. Rather than engaging in WP:REFSPAM, you could list whichever one(s) you don't use in the article under ==Further reading==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I typically put them on the talk page. Then when I come back latter I can than integrate them into the article.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Medical input at Solar eclipse needed

Solar eclipse is undergoing a review of its FA status. I had a read and noted it lacked sourcing for the viewing section, and could do with some buffing in terms of clarifying exactness of risks and damage to retina etc. I posted this in case anyone was more familiar with it (not a common syndrome in psychiatry...) Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:36, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you find the total lorazepam requirements vary according to the lunar phase and imminent solar eclipse?? JFW | T@lk 20:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Summer student

I have had a few offers of money for Wikipedia's medical initiatives. One project I was thinking of was hiring a summer student (basically a medical student between 2nd and 3rd year) to review all the new edits here. Than when not doing that they would make improvements to high / top importance medical articles and complete GA reviews. I would personally teach this person how to edit and basically they would spend 40 hours per week doing so during their summer holidays. Would probably limit applications to the University of British Columbia or the University of Calgary due to my location. The scholarship has not really garnered sufficient interest to keep it going. Comments? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Required: one Wikipediholic. Or at least someone who will not go completely barking from editing 40h/wk! JFW | T@lk 20:30, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Required will be one person willing to become a "Wikipediholic" yes. I managed to run a micropipet for 40 hours a week for one summer. It was not fun but it payed the bills. I would have much rather have done this for my paltry wage :-) but Wikipedia did not exist yet.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:39, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I refer to the Bell Pottinger COI Investigations, number 1.1.2. “The Independent” wrote serveral pieces about this case, one of them is found here. I think one should be very carefull, especially if the employer is a pharmaceutical company or similar. Granateple (talk) 21:01, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry not sure how this pertains? The employer will be, Wikimedia Canada, the Canadian chapter of the Wikimedia foundation, a non profit here in Canada. The funding will come from third party donors including myself.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:15, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

As long as the third party donors are not related to the pharmaceutical industry or similar, then everything is perhaps ok. Granateple (talk) 21:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedia Canada is an independent charity. Our work is not influenced by the pharmaceutical industry and I somehow doubt they would be interested in donating but you never know.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:33, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like we need a few eyes

An editor at Talk:Asperger syndrome has declared that he will remove all comments from unregistered users in the future. Refusing to allow unregistered users to participate is obviously unacceptable, and I think it would be appropriate for a couple of admins to keep an eye on the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes if he does not want IPs to edit he should request semi projection through the appropriate channels. Will watch.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:16, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

What is WP:MED

I have come across a couple of pages Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene and Superior angle of scapula which IMO do not belong as part of WPMED. Comments? --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Both should be part of the project. Human anatomy and the basic medical sciences were previously in the "pre-med" project which was merged with WPMED a while ago. Clinical trials are definitely part of WPMED, although I have no idea why this particular article needs to exist. I have sent it to AFD once again (here). JFW | T@lk 06:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Do we need a seperate page for each part of a bone? You think the superior angle could be discussed in the scapula article?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think whether something should be merged is a separate question from whether it should be part of this project.--Taylornate (talk) 07:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

... Although this project is an excellent place to discuss the principle of merging small medical articles into larger ones. In this specific case, I can see no reason for the tiny stub at Superior angle of scapula to be anything other than a redirect to Scapula#Angles. I would think that in general, merge and redirect ought to be part of the routine cleanup of articles in the scope of WPMedicine. Hopefully there's nothing controversial about that. --RexxS (talk) 15:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with merge & redirect. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

_{"Do we need a seperate page for each part of a bone?" Did you hear about the holistic orthopaedic surgeon? He treated the whole bone, not just the fracture. Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)}

Pure anatomy articles are currently being tagged as WP:WikiProject Anatomy rather than WPMED. (If the article has (more than a tiny bit of) information about specific medical issues, then it's both.)

The STAR trial I'd normally accept (and WP:PHARM might, too). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Categories for discussion nomination of Category:Disability disorders

Category:Disability disorders has been nominated for discussion. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the Categories for discussion page. Thank you.

Notifiying WikiProject Medicine in case anyone can provide a good definition or better name for this category (apart of course from any other comments). --Mirokado (talk) 00:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Positive position statement from the WMF regarding education program

The WMF has increased requirements for involvement as detailed here [5] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:12, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Link drugbox to NIAID ChemDB?

I have started an informal RfC on WT:PHARM#Template:AIDS Compounds whether the drugbox should link to NIAID ChemDB. Does anyone know about this database? Is it notable? --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 15:52, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

List of hospitals in India

Hello! This List of hospitals in India is very unorganized and obviously incomplete. I had some doubts about it. Hence thought that anyone would answer them here. Do we define what a Hospital means? I see many clinics also added to this list. Maybe they are hospitals but called as clinics or are clinics itself. But do we have some fixed thought on whats to be included here? And dont we require references? Very few of the enteries are blue linked and that will remain so forever. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 14:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Quick answers:

• Lists are supposed to define their inclusion criteria at the top of the page (in paragraphs of text). Don't rely solely on the title, which is often incomplete. If no one has defined this list, then anyone who wants to should feel free to do so.
• There is no requirement that lists contain only the names of hospitals that already have articles on Wikipedia.
• While references are very desirable, they are only required if one of these four situations apply, which is unlikely in the case of such a list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay! Will discuss with other editors & have a suitable definition of the list on top. Simple definition would be just what the title says. But i think thats too vast. There is this infinte List of cities and towns in India and then there will be n hospitals in them!! Your point about including non-blue linked names is also right. Because many of them are not notable enough to withhold their own article space but are notable enough to be included in a list. Also; in this case references are not required. But this can only be a way to keep the list from getting out of bounds. -Animeshkulkarni (talk) 16:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand your concern about the potential size of the list. It might make more sense to have a series of lists, one for each state and territory. A "List of hospitals in Gujarat" is likely to be more manageable. But if it's not actually too long right now, then the WP:SPLIT could be done at some future date. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Major Depressive Disorder (Vincent van Gogh: "At Eternity's Gate")

I refer the group to this thread on the Talk page at Major Depressive Disorder concerning the use of Vincent van Gogh's painting "At Eternity's Gate" in that article and to this comment of mine pointing out it has no place in the article and should be removed.

The essence of the complaint is that is fully documented that van Gogh's painting is not at all, nor was ever meant to be, a portrayal of depressive disorder but is rather merely a study of an old man. For that reason alone it should be removed for reasons of encyclopaedic accuracy.

As it stands it necessarily makes a judgement about the nature of depressive disorder, that it necessarily implies despair, even that it necessarily implies suicidal ideation (because of its title and van Gogh's own well known suicide). It is very much to be regretted indeed in my opinion that a Wikipedia administrator, Casliber, a practicising psychiatrist it seems but a poor historian of art, appears to be the prime mover behind perpetuating these poor judgements.

It also mythologises Vincent van Gogh himself who took the greatest care to separate his difficulties in life from his work; the nature of whose illness is not settled but which is not certainly typical of a depressive disorder; who is not documented as suffering from suicidal depressive moods in the last months of his life when this painting was completed and whose suicide itself has in the past year been plausibly questioned by a respected source as rather a manslaughter.

I ask that the image be removed. If it is felt necessary, and I cannot imagine why it should be, that the article be illustrated by a fine art image, then I suggest the original image, Durer's Melancholia, be reinserted. Skirtopodes (talk) 22:33, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I shall respond to your post paragraph-by-paragraph.

1. Whether or not the painting was intended to portray an individual suffering from major depressive disorder, the contributors to the article thus-far (including some trained psychiatric professionals) believe it does accurately illustrate depression. Neither the caption nor the image description substantiate your claim that the painting is definitely not portraying a depressed man, and so the image is not misleading. To paraphrase: the image gets the point across. It's good for the article.
2. Though you're right in saying that not all depressive patients have suicidal ideations, suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts are one of the most prominent and severe symptoms of depression. The image accurately portrays this. If you go to Meningitis, you'll see an image of the characteristic rash of meningococcal septicaemia. This is a very common presentation of the disease, but meningitis can and does occur without it. That doesn't mean we exclude the image, as it is informative. That said, there is nothing about the image which specifically implies suicide, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue there, whereas despair and hopelessness certainly are important and virtually universal features of depression.
3. The effect of including this image on the MDD article on either the artist or the artwork itself, is irrelevant. The fact that its inclusion may give rise to popular misconceptions about the mental state of Vincent van Gogh is of no concern when considering the quality of an article about MDD.

Overall, you seem to be obscuring this discussion towards a debate about whether van Gogh really was depressed. The inclusion of the image is not making any dramatic statement in this regard, it is simply seen as a good visual representation of depression. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 20:23, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

No. The painting is at the Kroller-Muller in Holland (the original lithograph is apparently lost). The title "At Eternity's gate" is not van Gogh's but some traditional title and it is exhibited at K-M as "Sorrowful Old Man: At Eternity's Gate" http://www.kmm.nl/object/KM%20111.041/Sorrowing-old-man-At-Eternitys-Gate?artist=Vincent%20van%20Gogh%20%281853%20-%201890%29&characteristic=&characteristic_type=Painting&van=0&tot=0&start=63&fromsearch=1. The same collection has an accompanying lithograph from the period of the original lithograph with a title beginning "Sorrowful woman ... " and in addition there is another lithograph from that period depicting the same old man reading a book with concentration and not displaying any signs of strong emotion. It's not clear what van Gogh's theme was at the time (his letters of the time are concerned only with the technicalities of producing these lithographs) but it's clear that at most he was concerned to depict sorrow, which I expect your trained psychiatrists you mention will concede is not a clinical condition. It is in fact only the subjectivity of the viewer who introduces the idea of 'sorrow' looking at this picture, let alone a diagnosis of depressive disorder your trained psychiatrists apparently make.

If the trained pyschiatrists you mention were writing a book on depressive disorder and wished to illustrate it with a dust-jacket depicting this painting, they would have to seek the permission of the trustees of the Kroller-Muller museum and it is far from clear to me that the trustees would wish to grant that permission. As trustees of the estate and moral rights of one of our greatest ever artists, they would undoubtedly wish to see that his work was viewed freely without stereotyping or mythologising the artist and might very well look askance at this attempt to make, quite gratuitously, the painting an iconic representation of depressive disorder and the more so given the considerable difficulty in assessing to what degree illness played a part in the painter's life and indeed what the nature of that illness was.

What your trained pyschiatrists are really doing with this painting are peddling sterotypes and myths. It is absolutely disgraceful and a matter of concern to all art lovers, 'trained' or otherwise. When you consider further, as every beginning student of art history knows, that van Gogh himself wrote intelligently about the relationship between insanity and artistic creation (he took a view that was to become fasionable decades later, that society 'labelled' artists as mad and so indeed they did eventually become) it becomes little short of outrageous, because that labelling is precisely what your trained psychiatrists are doing with the subject of this painting. Skirtopodes (talk) 00:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Look, you are completely missing the point. The effect of the inclusion of the image on the public perception of the work of art doesn't matter, because we are not having a discussion about the history of art. It doesn't matter what van Gogh called it or what he wanted to convey when he painted it, because here, today, it illustrates MDD well. This is the only reason the image has been chosen; not because it has some obscure link to a supposedly depressed artist. We could caption the image "Man about to hang himself in the midst of a major depressive episode triggered by the death of his dog by Duane van Eisenhower" and it wouldn't matter, because it would still accurately portray the condition we're describing. That is the only reason we use this image.

Moreover, we do not have to seek permission from anyone for anything, because the image you are talking about is in the public domain, and thus the trustees of the museum where the original is kept have no control over the distribution of copies.

Take this example. This image, I assume, was taken by the photographer to illustrate the impressive waves it pictures. That's fine. We could also use to portray California (where it was taken), or the Pacific Ocean (as indeed it is, at Pacific Ocean). We could even use it to illustrate how the sky appears blue, or how human settlements are often built by the sea. The fact that the author had none of this in mind when he took the photo would be no good reason to refrain from using it as such; we just use the images for whatever purpose they are useful.

The fact is, no one cares about this huge historical injustice which is apparently being done by using this image in the article, because it serves a good purpose there. It illustrates the subject, it isn't misleading, it isn't illegal. There's no good reason for it not to be there. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 01:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

No again. It is you who deny an issue and you do it in the time honoured way of accusing me of misunderstanding the 'real' issue.

However, I shall take you as face value and treat what you decribe as the real issue - that the painting is a good representation of MDD (Major Depressive Disorder). I did notice, incidentally, that this last reply of yours moves to the royal wikisodality 'we'. Are we by any chance young and naive - a student perhaps? High school?

Whatever, will you please explain what it is about the image that makes it a good illustration of MDD? That the man is old? That he is holding his knuckles to his face in an apparent gesture of depair? What makes you say the image accurately portrays that suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts are amongst the most severe and prominent symptoms of depression (or so you characterised them for my instruction)?

Above all, will you please quote reliable sources, as should be the Wikipedia way, that attest this painting as a good image of MDD. Who are these 'trained pyschiatrists' you mention? It looks likes OR (original research) to me. Skirtopodes (talk) 02:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I will simply say that an image of a man in an apparent state of private despair is a pretty good depiction of major depression (seriously, have you even read the article?). Apart from that, I'm not carrying on this debate and getting into an endless cycle of demands for citations to verify every word I type, especially as you seem willing to stoop to patronisation to derail the discussion. I've made my point. Suffice it to say I disagree with you, and I suspect others may as well. Regards Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 02:38, 15 January 2012 (UTC)(and congrats on making it as far as my user page and seeing the huge banner announcing that I have exams.)

I would say that it is simply an image of a man in an apparent state of despair and not that he was suffering major depressive disorder, which frankly does strike me as pretty condescending ('patronising') of you. It might be that he is simply in despair, perhaps because he's behind on the mortgage or can't get the Wikipedia community to see his point of view (or worried about his exams), and not in the least bit ill. Imagine.

Of course I read the article. Skirtopodes (talk) 02:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Ok hang on, so we are agreed that the picture depicts a man in despair? Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 02:59, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I had a funny feeling you may suddenly lose your voice. Anyway, allow me to illustrate:

1. Despair, defined by dictionary.com as loss of hope; hopelessness.
2. Hopelessness, along with anhedonia, is one of the two main prerequisite conditions for depression, according NICE guidelines.
3. Despair (and thus by extension, hopelessness) is portrayed, by your own admission, by the painting (controversially) titled At Eternity's Gate by Vincent van Gogh.
4. Thus, the painting accurately illustrates one of the two most important clinical features of clinical depression.

Q.E.D.. Is this sufficient? Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 03:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I have been away. You are quite juvenile. You cannot even distinguish between p -> q and q -> p. The whole point is that this merely a painting of a sorrowful old man. Just because an old man is sorrowful does not imply that he he is clinically depressed whereas indeed it may be true, as I presume you mean to instruct me, that an old man who is clinically depressed is necessarily sorrowful, nevertheless the two are not equivalent. I wonder what your mentor Casliber's professional association would make of this attempt to stereotype the old and sad as clinically depressed and in need of treatment?

I shan't notice any response you make. I have to say that if your would-be profession of choice involves the care of patients, then I can only hope that you were entirely unsuccessful in the examinations you mention. Skirtopodes (talk) 00:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Jackie Duffin

Is Jackie Duffin better off merged into Marie-Marguerite d'Youville? Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:36, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think these should not be merged. NCurse _work 15:46, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Violations of MEDRS at Prevention of migraines

Please take a look here: Talk:Prevention_of_migraines#Many_violations_of_MEDRS -- Brangifer (talk) 08:48, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

medical article infoboxes hard to understand?

Hi docs:

I wondered what is the rationale for the infoboxes that I see on medical articles? Like this one:

WikiProject Medicine/Archive 25

I guess they are lists of External Links. I'm fine with that actually (never been a stickler for the approach of not referring to external content.) But my concern about the boxes is they are so inscrutable to a regular reader. Why not have some format that is more like normal external links, where we say what article and content people are heading to? I mean, maybe docs know what the letters and numbers are, but it is pretty cryptic even to a technically trained, smart, non doctor.

TCO (Reviews needed) 22:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Archive 24#Helpfulness of data in infobox. Colin°^Talk 22:37, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

If you click on the ICD it will tell you that it is, the internal classification of diseases by the World Health Organization. Just one click away... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:38, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

You all are very helpful here (honest, have gotten great help, don't get mad at me), but I still worry that the vast amount of people are getting crufty letters and numbers in a very "valuable piece of real estate". I mean, look at this infobox, is there any reason to have the MeshID (whatever that is) unique identifier so prominent? It feels like putting an ISBN or a LOC catalog number up in a very important area.

WikiProject Medicine/Archive 25

For what it's worth, I consider these links and their esoteric codes to be unhelpful, even detrimental, to Wikipedia's medical articles. It is especially ironic when COI editors attempt to justify adding external links that are actually more useful than these infoboxes' links. Axl ¤ [Talk] 23:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes as mentioned there has been discussion of what better could go in its stead. With respect to technical data elements such as mercury (element) and chemicals such as Acetic acid have a great deal more. Would be happy to hear about proposals for improvements.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:09, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I should keep my head low in Project Medicine. Have a little eh...wheelbarrow problem according to some.  ;-)

But seriously, thanks for letting me interact and even thinking about it. Really liked how you all tried to help me get the HF burn image. I finally tracked one down from a hand surgeon (fourth donation attempt!)

HF burns, not evident until a day after

Getting serious, now though. Take a look at the different infoboxes. I think in some cases, infoboxes are actually bad (when they just repeat the lead, say for something in Project Mythology) and then they also drive a too small image in one of the few spots where a big image really great. I do like city infoboxes having some of the "World Almanac" info convenient. Am kinda meh on the species infoboxes with the long synonym lists, but they are OK. I think the element or chemical infoboxes are pretty useful. My gut feel is no infobox, would actually serve you better. Then put all the number stuff down in some penatlybox table at the end, sort of like a Project Aviation list of plane specs. but I am just babbling...TCO (Reviews needed) 00:35, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh...and I was seeing some really good doc to talk about something...and he used the Wiki when a question came up! He was kind of young and academic and used a program that had more of a root cause analysis path (not like a normal neighborhood doc, no offense). But he sure as heck did NOT use the ICD stuff. He scanned the text. I had to push him to look at the ref (I'm such a good Wikipedian...but it was some paper by a Harvard doc...and on the web too...)

TCO (Reviews needed) 00:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

ICD and MESH codes are mostly a way of aggregating and categorizing data. I don't think they're particularly useful in clinical practice, nor would they be useful to the interested lay reader. It's a bit like including an ISBN or Dewey decimal number in a book infobox. I agree the ICD/MESH info maybe should appear somewhere, but I'd agree with those who think it doesn't belong in an infobox. I agree that there's plenty of borderline useless info in other infoboxes (e.g. elements), but we don't need to follow that lead in our articles if we think it's a bad idea. MastCell ^Talk 01:03, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with MastCell here. I think the links in the infobox add important info and should be included somewhere in the article, but inclusion in the infobox skews the article towards their importance. I am a medical student – before I was, I found the boxes confusing. Now, I understand them, but don't find them useful.

Also, I think removing these links from the infobox template would free up room for information which a non-medical reader may find more useful (random examples: name of person who first described disease, date of first description, body system(s) affected etc.). The infobox at present seems to cater more to healthcare professionals as a technical tool, rather than to inform the layman. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 01:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments 1) Many diseases do not have discovers and have been described since antiquity. 2) Many conditions involved many body systems. 3) The main purpose for the ICDs IMO is the justify how we name the conditions in question. There are BTW exceeding useful when doing medical paperwork. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:46, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I realise those issues with the examples I suggested. To be honest, I wasn't suggesting them as an alternative, I was just trying to illustrate my point. The ICDs may well be useful to a professional as reference, but I don't think ICDs are useful to a non-medical reader, and it is non-medical readers we're writing for. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 13:53, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The content is "still in the article" even if you shift it to the end. You don't have to have an infobox, either. If the choice is no infobox or one with those Dewey decimal numbers, I would go no infobox and just have a big picture. Make the MESH, ICD stuff a table way at the end. I mean "refs" are helpful for paperwork also. But they are at the end. It's not a question of getting rid of the links, but do they justify their prominence, given low usage and inscrutability.TCO (Reviews needed) 15:59, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I am happy to consider putting other stuff in the infobox but consider them a good idea in general, better than nothing, and better than the infoboxes for many other subject areas with respect to technicality and usefulness.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the present userbox is a lot better than nothing at all. Perhaps it could be expanded so that it isn't so dominated by the links. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 18:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes a sandbox was created to trial additions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Medicine/Archive_24#Helpfulness_of_data_in_infobox Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The ICD codes are actual content; some readers are actually looking for them.

But nobody's looking for the eMedicine section/number, so we could put anything we wanted there. However, I haven't been able to think of anything that doesn't seem pointless (like the name of the disease). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I tend to think of such links as useful in the early stages of article development, less so later on, but not terribly problematic even then. For example, using them avoids wp:OR in choosing article titles among various options. There's some value in them in helping to find different names for the same disease, and in kickstarting interlanguage linking (because the ICD code listings are available in many languages). That's an area that might well someday be bot-assisted. Editors are far from unanimous on the question of hiding information: some want everything reflected on the rendered page, others would happily bury such details on a subpage or under a show/hide toggle. The former perspective seems to be the one that holds sway most often. I'd suggest that the ICD codes should be accompanied by the plain-English name that the code represents. Again, this could be bot assisted. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

How does hiding the ICD code number help educate the person who actually wants to know what the code is? It's like hiding the atomic number on an element. We know from past comments that real people (both professionals doing medical coding and patients trying to figure out their paperwork) actually use Wikipedia to look up these ICD numbers. If you replace 733.9 with Other and unspecified disorders of bone and cartilage, how does the person find the "733.9" that he actually wants to know? By guessing at the number based on the URL? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I did say "accompanied", not "replaced". LeadSongDog come howl! 17:17, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Template problems

Hi, some medical navigation templates, such as Template:Nervous tissue and Template:Virus topics, contain a whole bunch of gibberish, like "noco(m/d/e/h/v/s)/cong/tumr, sysi/epon, injr" and so on. Has something gone wrong with these? If it is for some reason intentional then it seems a rather bad idea. Who is supposed to understand it? 86.181.172.222 (talk) 18:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Yep. They are quite incomprehensible without prior knowledge, purest wp:Easter eggery. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the original author (Arcadian) wanted to crosslink all relevant templates to each other. I'm sure this could be done in other ways. JFW | T@lk 16:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

See Template:Medicine navs, and the notes at the bottom. --Arcadian (talk) 19:29, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

linking to Clinicaltrials.gov as a reference

Is there a policy of linking to clinical trials as a reference? In general I make it a habit to remove links to prospective or ongoing clinical trials; though there's guidance regarding external links, what about those found in the body of the article? As an example, I just removed an entire table of "advanced disease-modifying drug (DMD) candidates". It would seem to violate WP:CRYSTAL. Is this is what is implied by the statement "Wikipedia is not a directory of clinical trials or researchers" in the diseases section of MEDMOS?

For context, right now "clinicaltrials.gov" is found nearly 600 times and even on the first page a lot seem to be direct links to ongoing trials. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that they violate WP:CRYSTAL and thus should in most situations be removed. There are secondary sources that put ongoing research into better perspective.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see how saying "As of 2011 ClinicalTrials.gov listed over 600(/only one/no) active clinical trials on X disease" would violate CRYSTAL. It provides a crude but impartial measure of how much research is being conducted on a topic. It is a wp:ROUTINE factoid that doesn't need MEDRS secondary sourcing afaikt. The problems arise when the details of such trials start being put as facts in the voice of WP, which would need RS or even MEDRS (depending on what was being stated). LeadSongDog come howl! 17:34, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

My issue, particularly if a single clinical trial were linked to, would be the implication that this clinical trial will have impprtant results. What do you think of the diff I included in my first post? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the version prior to your edit I don't see any very controversial assertion made in the table, but I agree that the criteria for inclusion should have been made clear -- in fact I doubt they were ever systematically considered in this case. I might have looked for a statement including all results of this query which found 14 records on "alzheimer AND Studies With Results AND Interventional Studies AND disease modification AND Phase III, IV", then perhaps adding an end date limit, on the premise that any truly significant results will have been reviewed after two years, and thus be available in better quality sources.LeadSongDog come howl! 20:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that, at best, it might be a barely acceptable primary source, but I generally discourage them.

In particular, for something like Alzheimer's (where excellent sources about the state of research exist), it smacks of advertising and promoting trials. If it were some rare disease, then that website might be the best source available to the editors, but that's never going to be the case for Alzheimer's. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• I certainly do not agree that linking to clinicaltrials.gov would violate WP:CRYSTAL. In fact, that page says this specifically: "It is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced". If someone is now going to change that, please let me know because I don't have it watchlisted. Mentioning on ongoing clinical trial does not say that it will be successful, but it does provide further, often notable information on the topic, and when the due date for the clinical trial comes up, it provides a reminder for the editor to go look for the results. My opinion is that removing these without a good reason is a poor use of time, likely to lead to pointless and lengthy arguments (if nobody else, I may defend their inclusion), and does not serve the reading public in any way that I can tell. Admittedly, ideally these trials would be large and have secondary coverage. Also, considering that trials are often eager to find people, from a public policy perspective they could help connect potential participants connect to trials, a perennial problem (see, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/health/research/03trials.html?pagewanted=all) and help draw scrutiny to clinical trials prior to publishing, which is often nice given the common methodological flaws which are discovered after all the money and effort is spent. II | (t - c) 21:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

II, makes me think of the injunction in the "Diseases" subsection that points out we're not a directory of clinical trials (and not said there but implied - we're not here to help recruit people).

These links would be very susceptible to link rot as the trials end and new ones begin, and if secondary sources exist discussing a clinical trial then they are redundant.

There's no consensus apparent on removing them and that pretty much addresses my original question, thanks for everyone's comments. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 23:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Under the recommendation for a section called ==Research directions==, it says "Wikipedia is not a directory of clinical trials or researchers." It's been there since the summer of 2010. The nearly identical injunction at WP:MEDMOS#External_links is even older. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course, Wikipedia is not a "directory" for anything (Wikipedia:DIRECTORY#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory). So that by itself is not saying anything we don't already know. II | (t - c) 21:45, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

DSM copyright

Could someone check the copyright status on Global Assessment of Functioning? There are past problems noted on its talk page, and I think they may have resurfaced. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:41, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

A copy of it is here http://www.medi-mouse.com/graphics/GAFScale.pdf Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

"In other animals"?

WP:MEDMOS recommends inclusion of a section "In other animals" in medical articles. While this may be appropriate for predominantly "animal diseases" such as myxomatosis, I don't think that it is appropriate for "human diseases", or least articles that are clearly about the disease in humans. For such articles, could we change the guideline to recommend the section title "In animals" instead? (Yes, I am aware that humans are technically animals.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 16:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I like "in other animals" as there are still some who try to claim humans are not. Most articles I agree will not and do not have this section. We can make it optional maybe?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I prefer "in other animals" too. I think that it connects humans to the tree of life. Snowman (talk) 17:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I suppose "in other species" might be a more general answer, plus avoiding the problem of confusing the bizzarely large number of people with the misconception that only mammals are animals. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:02, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I quite like "In animals", because when asked to make the distinction people will probably distinguish between "people" and "animals". JFW | T@lk 22:58, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Potential project for a student

I am going to be apply for a summer student and have proposed a project here [6] Comments welcome.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

MEDRS and sock check

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/NutritionalNeuroscientist
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mariahsalyer

New account takes up where Mariahsalyer left off; adding primary studies to articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks and fixed.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:17, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Prostate cancer. 174 references

A primary, empirical study
Primary studies	62
Secondary studies (reviews / meta-analysis)	40
Medical information resources	24
Epidemiology / statistics / overall studies	18
Newspapers / news sources	17
Textbooks	8
Uncertain and/or difficult to classify	5
SUM	174
Primary studies	35,6 %
Other studies etc.	64,4 %

Castration – resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) is being treated with the plant secondary metabolite taxol (class: alkaloid). I am about to rewrite the Pomegranate health section with a focus on ellagitannins and anthocyanins (class: phenols). Many authoritative reviews are available. It is my opinion that reviews are preferable (as a safeguard), but that they should not become a strait jacket (secondary studies are based on primary studies …). What do you think about the balance in the example above? Granateple (talk) 16:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely not, per MEDRS, NPOV, and OR. --Ronz (talk) 16:51, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Ronz, you need to remember that WP:OR is the policy that directly says "primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia". WP:USINGPRIMARY sources is permitted on the English Wikipedia, even in medicine-related articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't clearer: Absolutely not in the Pomegranate article. --Ronz (talk) 06:21, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

As I said, many peer reviewed and authoritative reviews are available, published in reputed academic journals. They assess both completed and ongoing clinical trials (ongoing: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medical Center, University of California (LA) in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute). This pertain to Medicine. You are a man of few words, can you elaborate? Granateple (talk) 15:09, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

We'll have to see the sources, but looks to me like we're doing original research to make a case for heavily promoting a health claim into an article on a foodstuff that contains some bio-active substances that may have some positive health effects. --Ronz (talk) 16:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

One thing to remember is that we are permitted to WP:USEPRIMARY sources, even in Pomegranate—but that doesn't mean that we can use primary sources that way. For example, I recommend dumping the Kaplan mouse study, because no mouse study can "directly support" a claim that pomegranates reduce LDL oxidation in humans (which is what the sentence in the article clearly implies). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you. One part of the Pomegranate article is outdated. I will rewrite it and use secondary sources (reviews), and only cite a primary study when it fit into the context. Granateple (talk) 17:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

As I said, we'll have to see the sources. NPOV, OR, MEDRS all apply. If the information doesn't apply directly to pomegranates and there are no secondary sources guiding us around NPOV, OR, and MEDRS problems, then it doesn't belong. --Ronz (talk) 20:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

A centralized discussion was started on the Cranberry talkpage. A summary of the input from the community can be found there. Granateple (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

We're discussing the matter here and now at your request. Please continue if you want to be a part of the consensus-making. --Ronz (talk) 17:34, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The primary sources need addressing, but this does not give you a carte blanche to discuss unproven or doubtful non-standard treatments.

Secondary sources are usually not "studies" but reviews or textbook chapters that place the mass of primary research in context, describe trends, and identify gaps in the knowledge base. JFW | T@lk 20:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I depend on the community. I somewhat agree with you, but I prefer to use other words. The in vitro and in vivo results are promising, but the clinical findings (prostate cancer, rheumatoid arthritis etc.) are early and limited, and should be used with care.

As to the question regarding secondary sources vs. primary studies, it is my impression (being a Wikipedian for three months) that the majority do a very good job, respect the NPOV and do their best to build an Encyclopedia. That is why I think that something also must be left to the judgment of its members. Perhaps the contributors to the “Prostate cancer” article have found a certain balance? Granateple (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Prostate cancer articles needs a rewrite using review articles. I will get there eventually. Look at featured articles like dengue fever for the appropriate balance. It uses all secondary sources. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a little complicated, because primary sources are always fine for some purposes (e.g., a particularly famous paper), and what the best balance is depends on both the subject (good luck finding a bunch of secondary sources for extremely rare diseases) and on the use (a textbook cited 20 times is more important to the article than three primary sources, even though you might say that 75% of the citations were to primary sources).

What we really want editors to do is to use the best type of source that is available. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I know WhatamIdoing likes to correct any statements that smack of WP:BANPRIMARYSOURCES but empirical evidence is that citations to primary research papers nearly always indicate an incorrect use of sources, an attempt to violate WP:WEIGHT, and evidence the editor is conducting their own review of the primary literature. For example this edit to ketogenic diet required reverting twice after this editor didn't get the point. Frequently we see such editors cite policy or guidelines in saying they "may use primary sources", even arguing no reviews exist (which in this case is clearly false). Can we, for balance, ensure that every time it is pointed out that one may use primary research papers as sources for medical articles, also point out that is is very likely that one should not. And the chances that one should not increase if one is in a dispute over content. In addition, discussion of PSTS without context is pointless. BTW, I can think of a "particularly famous paper" by a chap called Wakefield. Colin°^Talk 13:48, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Ouch! But there are some generic instances that we can identify. Eponymously named diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc generally got those names for a seminal paper that should be cited in our articles, just as those papers are frequently cited in subsequent reviews and texts. We could hardly ignore Wakefield in the articles on autism or the vaccination controversy. The trick is not to fall into the error of treating these primary or outdated sources as more reliable than the subsequent higher-quality sources in the article. They remain of interest to readers (if only historically) and should be included with appropriate context from current reviews. This is of course not an argument in favour of nonsense such as medicinal mushrooms where the use of primary sources has run amok. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I do not mind if people use primary sources in the history or society and culture sections of an article. It is when they use them for medical information especially when secondary sources are available. This editor wishes to discuss palates for hernia treatment as seen here [7] and justifies it by saying MEDRS states no academic sources can be used with causion [8].Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

We absolutely do not cite seminal papers "just as those papers are frequently cited in subsequent reviews and texts" -- for reviews and other text cite the source research paper as a matter of course and in order to attribute credit. Citations can appear in WP articles for two reasons. The most common is when referring to a source used by the editor for the article. Another less common reason is to fully identify the work or study referred to in the text. The former typically appears as footnotes in a References section. The latter could appear in the article body (e.g., a list of papers published by someone, in their bio article), in a Bibliography section or as a footnote. It is not uncommon to see such footnotes interspersed with article-source citations in the References section but there could be a separate Notes section or the Bibliography could be hyper-linked from the body text if one wanted. If you haven't actually read the paper, then WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT requires you add a "cited by..." suffix if you put it in with the References. Such info-citations aren't covered by WP:V or WP:MEDRS: they aren't sources.

Editors may wish to list Parkinson's seminal work(s) to inform the reader. But lets not pretend they are sources [except rarely]. You didn't, one dull wet afternoon in an obscure corner of the university library, happen upon some old manuscript and say to yourself "You know, this Parkinson fellow might just have been the first person to describe that shaking palsy disease". Unlike in academia, we should not be ashamed to cite the true secondary source of our information, and we are under no obligation to credit the original discoverers of new information.

Using primary sources in the History section is as potentially troublesome as using them in any part of WP. The history of medicine might generally be less controversial than the efficacy of alternative medicine or the toxicity of western drugs but the problems remain. Colin°^Talk 20:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

References

As many of you know I am working on a project to translate our top importance articles into as many other languages as possible. One problem I have encountered is that while {{cite}} is support in other wikis {{vcite}} and {{sfn}} is not. Is there any agreement here to go with cite?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Please excuse the refactoring James. Did you mean you wanted to use 'cite' to replace 'vcite' and 'sfn' (and presumably {{harvnb}}?) in our en-Wikipedia articles, or in the translated articles in other language wikis? --RexxS (talk) 12:16, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Are you proposing changing the en.wiki articles? Then no, please leave the templates alone. Any {{vcite}} template on en.wiki can be converted to a {{cite}} template on another wiki by just dropping the "v". Colin°^Talk 12:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

What I am wanting is that text I have worked on and cited with "cite" not be changed to other reference styles by those who do this and where not involved in writing the content in question.

What is the benefit of "vsite"? And why is this bot doing it? [9]

If justification can be provided I might be convinced... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:58, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

On some articles, such as Alzheimer's disease, the sheer number of cited references has meant that the switch from {{cite journal}} to {{vcite journal}} was necessary for technical reasons. The html rendering is much smaller and faster. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:53, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

While if that is the case how much work is it to switch other wikis over? And should we be going be vcite across the board? I see there is already a bot that does this... We should change the ref tool in the edit box aswell... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

There is a discussion of the relative speeds of citation templates at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Citation templates (technical). Vcite is quicker than Cite because it does not offer as many features. In addition, Vcite uses a "Vancouver" style of reference formatting, rather than the normal "wikipedia house style" (which I think is mainly based on a "Chicago" style). You'd need to make proposals to change policy in such a major fashion at the Village pump, but be prepared for lots of opposition as everyone has their own favourite referencing schemes, and will defend them because each offers some advantages over the others. --RexxS (talk) 15:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The issue discussed at Talk:Alzheimer's disease was that the NewPP limit report (shown as a comment in the rendered html) was showing the Post-expand include size maxed out at 2048000/2048000 bytes, breaking the subsequent navigation templates at the end of the page. Changing to vcite cut that number to 1058289/2048000, even after the additional templates at page-end were once again correctly rendered. Compare the before and after versions. For medical topics, Vancouver is generally accepted anyhow, having been developed and adopted (with minor variances) for use by all the major medical journals. It's used, for instance at Parkinson's disease, which is FA-class. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The applicable rules are at WP:CITEVAR. Wikipedia does not have a single "house style". The style chosen varies between articles, based on what editors at that particular article believe is best. If you want to change the style on an article, you must have a discussion (at each and every single article, not just one mass discussion here) that demonstrates a consensus to change the style for that article. This means, by the way, that if the article is already using vcite, then you need to use vcite for any material that you're adding or re-working, even if that means going to the trouble of manually typing a "v" into the template that Diberri's tool generates for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

At the risk of being pedantic here, Wikipedia does have a "house style" (although I feel we are using it in different senses), which is the default produced by the {{cite}} templates: author1 last name; comma; author1 first name; semicolon; additional authors; year in parentheses; period; title in quotes and linked; period; publication in italics; period; etc. This is neither Chicago, nor API , nor Vancouver, but a hybrid that Wikipedia has created. In that sense alone, it is our house style, but obviously is not mandatory. Everything else WAID said is absolutely correct however, and editors may invest a lot of effort into deciding which style of reference works best in any given article. They will often not take kindly to wholescale changes for no obvious reason. --RexxS (talk) 03:05, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Last I checked, several of the cite templates are incompatible with other cite templates.

If your definition of house style is "made up on Wikipedia", then we have hundreds of house styles, and four or five commonly used ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The {{cite}} series use a common set of core routines and have been tweaked over time to return reasonably consistent results within the family. Of course {{citation}} gives a noticeably different format, so the two shouldn't be mixed; likewise for {{vcite}}. The editing interface presents an editor with the 'cite' family from the toolbar, and I expect that the majority of citation templates are inserted by that route using default settings in a style that appears to be unique to Wikipedia. That was what I had in mind when I used the phrase "house style". --RexxS (talk) 14:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Dissociative identity disorder

There is a full-blown edit war going on at this article and it could use the intervention of some level-headed editors from this project. Thanks. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 10:28, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks like things have quieted down a bit.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:35, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

• Since midnight, over 25Kb of text has been added again to the talk page in 51 edits, with accusations of meatpuppetry and off-wiki hounding... --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

And now we have one of the editors deciding unilaterally that we should not be producing a table of contents where a section has a single subheading because it doesn't match his concept of what a sub-division should entail, and dismissing any advice to the contrary. More eyes at Talk:Dissociative identity disorder would be much appreciated. --RexxS (talk) 03:30, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The environment for that article is really screwed up. We seem to have a couple of POV pushers—maybe a couple on each side, but definitely two on the "There is no controversy whatsoever about this condition" side of things. The appearance of several level-headed editors would be appreciated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Golding Bird

Golding Bird has been nominated for FA. You are welcome to add your comments there. SpinningSpark 13:09, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Really amazing job! NCurse _work 12:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Inguinal hernia

User:Mokotillon wish to add the following text to inguinal hernia supported by a ref to http://www.groin-hernia.com/herniabible/exercises.html and a youtube video. He feels that these refs are supported by WP:MEDRS as mentioned here [10].

Alternative treatments to surgery, like pilates exercices, have been suggested, but they have neither been backed nor denied by empirical studies.

IMO this is WP:OR and WP:UNDUE. As well as not supported by WP:MEDRS. Further comments welcome.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:10, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope, it's straight WP:FRINGE and has no place in Wikipedia. I think Mokotillon is acting in good faith, but is clearly mistaken about what our requirements are for medical claims. I've pointed him to WP:REDFLAG as well to try to establish some perspective. --RexxS (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Image caption in pneumothorax

Re: File:Pneumothorax CXR.jpg. This image was uploaded to Commons and described there as an X-ray of someone how had clinical tension pneumothorax. The caption for this image on the Pneumothorax article is being discussed at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Pneumothorax/archive1. The current caption is "Chest X-ray of left-sided pneumothorax (seen on the right in this image). The left thoracic cavity is partly filled with air occupying the pleural space. The mediastinum is shifted to the opposite side." Currently, the caption and the Commons image description may be unstable. I think that mention of tension pneumothorax should be included in the image's caption in the Wikipedia article. Any comments? Snowman (talk) 14:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes there is a debate. As per this ref and my years of ER training a CXR that shows a tension is one that should never have been taken as treatment should have been carried out before hand.[11]. And while not diagnostic a X rays can be consistent with tension pneumothorax and this is indeed common medical usage.[12] It can also be suggested by an Xray per[13] and some cases are missed clinically as health care is not perfect. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

This editor has repeatedly been ignoring my contention (based on the sources) that X-ray appearances do not correllate with the presence or absence of tension. One of the sources on pneumothorax (Noppen & De Keukeleire) states unequivocally that mediastinal shift is a common feature on X-rays in people with pneumothorax, and that this is not a proxy for tension. The sources make very clear that tension is defined by the clinical state of the patient. Despite this, Snowmanradio has repeatedly insisted on adding to the image caption that the "X-ray is consistent" with tension, something that one simply cannot conclude from the image. JFW | T@lk 01:14, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that Snowmanradio's changes amount to a straightforward NOR violation and should be rejected. I also think it inappropriate for him to worry about the state of the Commons information page, as what appears not only a completely separate page, but actually a completely separate project is irrelevant to the FAC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no element of NOR in writing "consistent with tension pneumothorax" in the caption. The original X-ray description on commons said that the person, who was X-rayed had tension penumothorax clinically. I agree with User Doc James that "abc changes are consistent with a diagnosis of xyz" is a commonly used expression. The phrase is used in X-ray reports, pathology reports, and probably many other situations. I think that than an X-ray, like this one, consistent with a potentially life threatening condition should have "consistent with tension pneumothorax" (or another phrase to mention tension pneumothroax or an emergency in an appropriate way) written clearly in the caption. I am concerned partly because readers might look at the image and read its caption, but not read the text in the article. Incidentally, I think that image documentation on Commons it a legitimate topic for FAC, especially when there are important differences between the two. Snowman (talk) 09:54, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

If the fact that this image (or images similar to it) is "consistent with xyz" does not appear in a published, reliable source, then you, that is, the Wikipedia editor, deciding that it happens to be "consistent with xyz" and calling out your own conclusion about the image, is a straightforward violation of NOR. Not published in any reliable source == NOR violation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes a CXR does not rule in a tension pneumo but it does rule it out if one only sees a small pneumo.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not quite sure exactly what Doc James is saying "yes" too, but I think he is again confirming that "consistent with a tension pneumothorax" is a useful thing to say about this X-ray. I do not see a mass of fibrosis that could be pulling the mediastinum to one side in the lung not affected by the pneumothorax. I maintain that this X-ray is consistent with a tension pneumothorax and that this dangerous possibility should be mentioned in the caption. Snowman (talk) 13:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Doc James' statement that a person with a "clinically diagnosed tension pneumothorax" should not proceed to x-ray prior to treatment. That assertion alone makes the Commons text questionable. The Commons text continues: "Due to the fact this is an posterior to anterior x-ray of the patients chest, the patient's left is your right (as if you are looking at the patient facing you". That statement is unequivocally false. The only information that we can definitively claim from the x-ray alone is that there is a pneumothorax with tracheal deviation away from the side of the pneumothorax. We can't even be sure which side is the left; for some reason the marker has been obscured. (I accept that the shape of the heart suggests that the x-ray is in the conventional orientation.)

" While not diagnostic a X rays can be consistent with tension pneumothorax and this is indeed common medical usage. "

— Doc James

" I agree with User Doc James that "abc changes are consistent with a diagnosis of xyz" is a commonly used expression. The phrase is used in X-ray reports, pathology reports, and probably many other situations. "

— Snowmanradio

I am unable to view the links that Doc James provided. Radiologists and pathologists are provided with a lot of extra clinical information. Indeed they keep insisting that clinicians provide as much relevant information as possible, because it assists them in reporting. Despite extra clinical information, radiologists may "sit on the fence" with terms such as "consistent with", purely because the diagnosis must be made in the clinical context, not from the x-ray alone. Axl ¤ [Talk] 14:18, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I would like to advance the discussion, because I think that writing in the possibility of a significant diagnosis in a X-ray or pathology report with "consistent with a diagnosis of xyz" is primarily to inform clinicians useful information and it is not simply a case of "sitting on the fence". Writing in "consistent with a diagnosis of xyz" is proactive, while at the same time being honest about the limitations of the material or images at hand. It is also for medico-legal reasons, to insure that the clinician is aware of the possibility of a significant diagnosis or sometimes to write in a working clinical diagnosis that has ample alternative documentation. I would agree about delays taken to do an X-ray of a clinical case of tension pneumothorax could be very important here, and the expected delays are dependant on the whereabouts of the patient. I was reading one reference yesterday, which said that some tension pneumothoraces take hours to evolve, while others are very quick. If the X-ray facilities are distant then this would make the time delays of doing an X-ray even more unacceptable. I would agree that the image description on Commons could be improved. The image shown in the article is a cropped version and the un-cropped image can be seen in the file history in Commons. The shape of the heart, a possible stomach bubble under the left of the diaphragm and the possibility of a radio-apaque liver under the diaphragm on the right are all indicators of the left and right orientation, and I think that there is no doubt about its orientation. I had access to two out of three of the external links Doc James provided. Snowman (talk) 14:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

The image description on Commons may need to be rewritten carefully with the information of a fictional case showing this X-ray at clinical cases. I am used to reading about "true cases" and I am not sure to what extent the case history on clinicalcases is fictional or real (with some circumstances changed). The websites disclaimer says; "There are no real life patient data on this website." Snowman (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that this discussion should be continued on Talk:Pneumothorax or on the FAC page. JFW | T@lk 20:39, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I have tidied up the image description on Commons. Snowman (talk) 10:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

More pneumothorax

Hello all, at the risk of boring everyone, I'd really appreciate some more comments at the FAC for pneumothorax. JFW | T@lk 22:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly the FA has failed due to lack of feedback. Shame. Will try again in a while. JFW | T@lk 11:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

should articles about medical conditions only deal with medical information?

Should articles about medical conditions only deal with medical information? Or can they also report about what people actually do with their disease, (as far as this practice meets WP:notability), even if the medical community has not written anything about it? The current guidelines WP:MEDRS do not deal with this topic: they deal with non-academic sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources_%28medicine-related_articles%29#Other_sources as sources of medical information, but they do not deal with them as sources of information about social practices related with a medical condition. This is different: I think that medical information should clearly be separated from social practices information, but I also think that both can be part of the same article. For example, evolution article has a section "Social and cultural responses".Mokotillon (talk) 14:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

We do have a section on "society and culture" but they still need to be reliable secondary sources.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

yes, but do they really need references from medical journals, if it is not medical information? I am afraid you did not understand my point. I am giving up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mokotillon (talk • contribs) 09:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

In most cases, if a medical condition has a significant sociocultural impact one would be able to find something on this in the medical literature. But I agree that if this is not possible, a reliable secondary source is still required. Quite a few medical articles have "Society and culture" sections, where appropriate. JFW | T@lk 11:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

If you're talking about non-medical stuff—e.g., lawsuits about drugs, references in popular culture, social movements, historical perspectives—then no, you don't need to use medical journals or medical textbooks as your sources. In fact, while such sources are often available, they're often not the best possible source. Try a law review for legal issues, a pop culture book for pop culture issues, a sociology text for sociological stuff, a history journal for historical information, and so forth. And even for medical information, you're not restricted purely to review articles; you can also use good-quality medical textbooks or other kinds of secondary sources.

Given your recent edit history, though, let me clarify what "non-medical" means: Most of what you'll find at Breast cancer awareness is non-medical. Most of what you'll find at AIDS#Society_and_culture is non-medical. Whether people get surgery for Inguinal hernias is medical information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:36, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Open Access Journals and related issues

There is a serious question about the legitimacy of "open access" journals as sources under WP:MEDRS. Clearly, the concept that the author pays to have his paper published is at odds with the traditional model of academic journals, raising questions about the extent to which the journal's editorial standards (assuming it has any to begin with) are compromised by the lure of the cash from the prospective authors. Many open access journal publishers have been singled out as nothing more than the academic journal version of a vanity press, others identified as being on a "watchlist" for having vanity press aspects that raise questions. [14] This question came to my attention because of a large number of articles in open access journals of recent vintage being extensively used as sources in the Wikipedia article Transcendental Meditation research. See discussion here Talk:Transcendental_Meditation_research#Sources_under_scrutiny I question (i) whether any "open access" journal can serve as a source and (ii) if being an "open access" pay-to-play journal is not automatically disqualifying, how we establish for purposes of WP:MEDRS whether a particular publisher or a particular journal is indeed high-quality, accepted and reputable. Anybody nowadays can publish an online-only journal, claim to have peer review, put an impressive name on it, and have someone at Wikipedia use it as a source on a medical article. Thoughts? Fladrif (talk) 16:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Open access journals and papers more and more becomes the rule rather than the exception in science. PLoS ONE is an good example. Granateple (talk) 17:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

This is hardly a medicine-specific issue, it should be discussed at WP:RS/N if anywhere, but in short the idea that the method of payment affects the reliability of the result is hardly a new one. We need objective measures of reliability. That's what citation index measurements such as impact factors and journal ranking are for, flawed as they may be. For new journals these measures take some time to be established, hence they are generically suspect. Journals with prominent experts on their editorial boards gain some halo effect but we can't quantify that.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:38, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

PubMed → Cancer = 2.594.783 hits and 467.894 Free full text Granateple (talk) 17:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If authors are paying to have research published, in smaller, obscure journals, I think this is a big red flag for the reliability of the material (I have not looked into whether this is the case in this instance). Also, after a brief review of the discussion on the TM page, other red flags that immediately rose for me about the journals being discussed include that they are being published in journals that would be typically outside their specific area of interest (in this case nursing and nutrition -- which raises the question of how good the "peer" review actually was) and that the journals, after a quick search, are not MEDLINE indexed (to me almost an immediately disqualifying factor - there are enough journals that ARE MEDLINE indexed that don't meed MEDRS, there is no need to use ones that aren't). Yobol (talk) 17:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

• • • Because of the general nature of this posting I've moved a specific discussion to [15], so that the specific content and source in question can be scrutinized.(olive (talk) 18:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

No, you are not moving this discussion to RSN. The presumption is staggering. This involves particulary references to specific journals and whether they meet the requirements of WP:MEDRS, and there is an ongoing discussion here. This smacks of desparate forum shopping as the initial comments here are hardly favorable to your advocacy of these sources. Fladrif (talk) 18:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say I'd moved this discussion, I said I'd moved a discussion that is more specific per a single source. To be clear. As well this isn't a DR forum, so whether the source is considered reliable or not and removed should be dealt with on a NB, which it now is. (olive (talk) 21:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC))

A complicating issue is that several institutions require researchers to publish in journal that ensure public access to the material (this notably includes NIH-funded research). See, for example, this Ars Technica article, or the NIH policy. While this doesn't mandate open access journals, they may be the easiest way to comply with such a requirement. So I don't think that we can regard open access as automatically suspicious.

That said, there are an awful lot of journals, both open access and with a conventional publishing model, that seem highly dubious from a reliability standpoint. I wish that we could find some way of sorting the wheat from the chaff. I haven't looked at any of the sources in this particular case, and hence won't comment on them. Jakew (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Many open access journals do not require authors to pay any publication fees. Fladrif (talk) 19:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Very well said, Jakew Granateple (talk) 19:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Last I checked, the "traditional model of academic journals" was that you paid Elsevier or Springer somewhere between a couple hundred and two thousand bucks a page (depending on the journal) for the privilege of letting them publish your paper. Some of their journals also have submission fees, i.e., payments made for them to even consider whether they want to publish your article. They're also now typically charging a couple thousand dollars so that readers won't be charged ~$30 each to read your article.

Why would it be okay to pay Elsevier to publish your paper, but not an outfit that additionally guarantees anyone can read the article for free at no extra cost? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

New articles needing review...

Food protein-induced Enterocolitis syndrome and PTSD in postpartum women. These need cleanup, at the very least. Steven Walling • talk 05:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The first one doesn't exist? NCurse _work 08:46, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It was just deleted as a copyvio. Unless someone gets there before me, I should be able to do basic cleanup on PTSD in postpartum women. First thing it needs is a new name, but I'm not sure what. We've got Postpartum post traumatic stress disorder, Postnatal post-traumatic stress disorder, and trauma related to childbirth all mentioned in the sources. And a search of PubMed turns up more mentions of general postpartum anxiety, stress, trauma, psychiatric disorders, etc. So I don't know how to name the article. I found one copyvio, deleted one that might have been, and the sources are primary studies-- I don't know what search term to use for locating reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Strikes me that "in postpartum women" would be a tad redundant unless it's to distinguish from neonatal PTSD or paternal PTSD (if such disorders even exist). Searching on "Related Citations for PubMed (Select 8159558)" turns up quite a variety of formulations. Is the article to discuss only partus as the stressor or be more general? The largest envelope would seem to be Posttraumatic stress disorder after pregnancy, which would encompass all stressors, including emergency delivery, miscarriage, injuries during pregnancy, and so forth. Obviously lots of redirects will be needed whatever the article is named. What does the DSM use? LeadSongDog come howl! 19:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't even know if it's in the DSM-- I don't have access to full text sources. Anyway, editors are plowing ahead at Postpartum posttraumatic stress disorder, chunking in text from primary sources, even though I've listed secondary reviews on talk. That's all I can do, I don't have access to sources, don't know how to name the article, and don't even know if it should be an article or should be merged to PTSD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Health Science Journal

WP:RSN seems to be willing to take up questions regarding whether sources meet WP:MEDRS, so I've asked the question there [16], rather than here, which would have been my first inclination. I'm inquiring about the use of an article from the online nursing publication Health Science Journal, formerly known as ICUs and Nursing Web Journal in the Transcendental Meditation research article. I'd appreciate any uninvolved editor input on the reliability and use of the source. Thanks. Fladrif (talk) 16:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Input requested regarding recent changes to psychiatry articles

I noted a change on my watchlist today on Mental disorder by Psychiatrick (talk · contribs) which looked like material that took material out of context to promote an undue POV. I note that this user has made numerous other Psychiatry-related pages including Psychiatry which have prominently cited the works of psychiatry critic Thomas Szasz as well as using google book references to publishers I'm not familiar with. As this user has added numerous similar material across multiple pages, I wanted to see if anyone else is seeing the same problem I am seeing before mucking around with these articles, or if I am missing something (psychiatry being outside my usual comfort zone). Thanks! Yobol (talk) 00:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The editor has made thousands of edits! Is there an article or some edits which are of particular concern? I haven't any of the articles that he is contributing to on my watch list. Thomas Szasz is on the fringes of psychiatry and is connected to CCHR and thus his views should only be given low weight, if any weight at all.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Checked the recent edits on psychiatry article and they were problematic.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Specific examples: ::This diff shows changes to the DSM page, where the user adds Szasz's definition of the DSM to the lead (it is cited to a different author, but in the source it is actually written by Szasz) as well as addition of material published by O-books, which I'm not familiar with. This diff shows multiple changes that have been made to Psychiatry, including adding such quotes as "In spite of all the evidence, people underappreciate or, more often, ignore the political implications of the therapeutic character of Nazism and of the use of medical metaphors in modern democracies. Dismissed as an "abuse of psychiatry,” this practice is touchy subject not because the story makes psychiatrists in Nazi Germany look bad, but because it highlights the dramatic similarities between pharmacratic controls in Germany under Nazism and those in the USA under what is euphemistically called the “free market"" - in the section about political abuse of psychiatry. This edit also added a section titled "Skepticism about the concept of mental disorders" which appears to take a paragraph out of context from one commentary and setting it up as a separate section. Yobol (talk) 01:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yea, saw those edits; they made the article too undue and sourcing was problematic, so I reverted those contributions.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:35, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, other articles that could use a once-over (and watchlisting) include Medicalization, Action T4 and Anti-psychiatry as similar material has been added to all of these. Yobol (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just made some excisions at Anti-psychiatry (though, only got half-way through). I'm moving house and won't have time to look carefully at this for a while. Can I ask everybody to treat this editor with kindness? Our psychiatry content badly needs a critical eye, the considerable body of non-fringe criticism, from both within and without the profession, is very poorly represented in the encyclopedia. I don't know if Psychiatrick is what we need, but he might be, once he's tutored on NPOV, RS, etc. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Contributions with regard to criticisms of psychiatry which are mainstream or minority view are welcome if within policies and guidelines; outright antipsychiatry is WP:FRINGE though I believe. I agree that we should give this enthusiastic editor WP:GOODFAITH and be civil to them and try to help them to improve their editing; I have sent them a message to explain that my revert of their contributions was nothing personal and gave this editor a few pointers, incase he misinterpreted my revert as personally hostile.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

(←) We've had no end of trouble with critics of psychiatry in the past on Wikipedia. I'd say their perspectives are reasonably well represented. NPOV and WEIGHT need to be adhered to at all times. JFW | T@lk 07:07, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

(ec) I haven't experienced any of it but I can well imagine. We do have one editor, FiachraByrne (talk · contribs), with an interest and some expertise in the history of mental illness. I guess it's her kind of perspective of scholarly contextualising rather than Scientology-style, that I'm hoping we'll find in Psychiatrick. I know the odds are small. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you all think that the article “Psychiatry” needs the new section “Criticism” based on reliable sources by physicians and psychiatrists critical of psychiatry? There are a lot of psychiatrists critical of psychiatry, not only Loren Mosher, who was a member of the American Psychiatric Association, and Thomas Szasz, who is its member. Then, why does the article “Psychiatry” not have the section “Criticism” and why is psychiatry badly defended from its critics? Biased against them, people do not usually think that criticism of surgery is antisurgery, but they think that any criticism of psychiatry is antipsychiatry, and any critics of psychiatry are unreasonably labeled as antipsychiatrists. Psychiatrick (talk) 14:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not a fan of "criticism" sections; any legitimate criticism should be incorporated into an appropriate section. I should note that any criticism that is added should clearly meet WP:MEDRS and should not be attempts to add WP:FRINGE arguments. Yobol (talk) 17:36, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm also not a fan of criticism sections, but it's possible that this, or at least a ==Society and culture== sort of section, might not be completely out of place. Incorporating the material into other sections would be preferable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Heads up at Doctor

An anonymous IP keeps adding some bizarre entries to the healthcare section of this list against consensus (see talk page). I've tried to stir up more conversation there, but I can't carry on reverting the edits because I'm sailing close to the wind in terms of WP:3RR. Also, I'm going to Tanzania tomorrow for 2 months for my elective, and so won't be able to follow this up. If some of you could adopt this issue and sort it that would be great. Thanks. Basalisk ^{inspect damage}⁄_berate 18:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

It's been semi-protected for a week. Perhaps the unregistered editor will lose interest in the meantime. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

MEDRS review needed for FAC article

Hi. I'm preparing to nominate Birth control movement in the United States for Featured Article status, and it was suggested that the article be reviewed first by a medical black-belt, to ensure it conforms to WP:MEDRS standards. Could someone help out? Please post any comments at the articles Talk page. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 05:35, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That was fast! I was also coming here to ask for help. Noleander has written an FA, is a competent writer, and I advised him/her that WP:MEDRS compliance on any medical statements in the article was needed. On my advice, Noleander withdrew the FAC to consult first with editors here, so anything folks can do semi-quickly would be most appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I had the very quickest skim over the article and sources. It appears to mostly a historical and social article rather than one dealing with many medical facts, so WP:MEDRS isn't the main concern. The sourcing for the emergency birth control drugs at the end isn't appropriate IMO. The article is concerned with

• the dates of FDA approval
• that the drugs are available over-the-counter
• that the drugs are effective for three days and five days after sex (respectively) (hence the '"morning after pill" is a misnomer' point)

For these facts, the papers Sarkar 2001 and by Creinin et al 2006 are not appropriate as sources (nor are they especially interesting or relevant to the reader of this article). It is one thing for a scientific study to show efficacy for five days, say, but another for the drug to be approved and recommended for that duration -- which is what counts in this historical article. I would be quite happy to use any reliable professional US-related secondary source on drugs or birth control. For example, the FDA website if you can find a stable url, or an up-to-date drug reference book.

I'll try to read this article properly later but probably not today. Colin°^Talk 08:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Colin! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Oh, and one other point. Is this particular article, which deals with the social aspect rather than the medical or biological, and focuses just on the US, I think it is reasonable and preferable to use the approved drug's US brand name rather than the INN name if that is what the lay press (and thus general public) used (e.g. "Plan B" or "ella"). The wikilink can still point to our article with the INN name. Colin°^Talk 11:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Colin: Thanks for the feedback. I'll fix the sources per your suggestion; and also change the drug names. If you find time for a more thorough review, that would be great: just post your comments on the article Talk page, and I'll take care of them. --Noleander (talk) 14:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that the drugs should be named by the generic name, for an international readership. 81.151.130.131 (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Alexander technique

The article about the Alexander technique needs work. Expertise in presenting randomized controlled clinical trials (and perhaps the weaker studies also presented) would be especially useful.

The BMJ reported on two studies of the AT for relieving chronic or recurrent back-pain.

Thanks,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Every pre-professional and university performing arts program teaches the Alexander technique ... there must be good sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. The project's experience and your edits have been very valuable in setting the agenda for future revisions.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:31, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Khan Kinetic Treatment

Hi,
could someone please have a quick look at Khan Kinetic Treatment (KKT)? This may have been created as a promotion job, and I have a hard time figuring out whether this is a viable topic. Google News doesn't know it, but that is certainly not the best place to check.
Thanks, Amalthea 12:43, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

At first glance, the entire topic looks like WP:FRINGE. Most of the article is unsourced, and all the cited papers came from the same study (3 of the references are identical papers published in different journals!). Wafflephile (talk) 00:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Oil of cloves

At Talk:Oil_of_cloves#NYT_article_.2F_blog_post I am trying to find:

• "Pramod, K.; Ansari, S. H.; Ali, J. (2010). "Eugenol: A natural compound with versatile pharmacological actions". Natural product communications 5 (12): 1999–2006. PMID 21299140. edit"

How do I access this resource? Do you know of any other ways which I can find review articles of the following?

• "Al-Melh, Manal Abu and Lars Andersson. "Comparison of topical anesthetics (EMLA/Oraqix vs. benzocaine) on pain experienced during palatal needle injection." Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radiology, and Endodontology. Elsevier BV. Volume 103, Issue 5, May 2007, Pages e16–e20. PMID: 17331753 PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE at the NIH website"

Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 23:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I can answer the first part of your question. You will find the study as open access on their website (Natural product communications). It is part of the sample issue. Granateple (talk) 00:15, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! I found the article is at http://www.naturalproduct.us/content/NPC-5-12-2010.pdf - Now, the journal says "2010 Impact Factor: 0.894 (2010 Thomson Reuter, Journal Citation Reports)" - So is this a sufficient secondary source?

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:28, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Natural Product Reports from Royal Society of Chemistry has impact factor 8.881, so this journal is not comparable to them. On the other hand: Natural product communications is academic and technical, with 8 professors as editors and 37 professors on the advisory editorial board, one of them from my country, from the second largest University. Granateple (talk) 00:57, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

The impact factor is not what makes something be a secondary source or even a good source. It really only tells you whether it's a popular source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Article Osteopathic Medicine in the United States Nomenclature DO vs. Osteopathic Physician

I have come to this talk page to discuss this nomenclature issue in an effort to prevent an editing war. A user has been reverting my edits that have changed the phrase "osteopathic physician" to DO. I have laid out several logical reasons for making this change both on the Osteopathic Medicine in the United States page and on the user's talk page. I would like to hear other opinions on the matter. The user has stated more or less that it is his personal preference that osteopathic physician be used to refer to the holder of the DO degree and that DO should be reserved solely for the degree. He believes that referring to osteopathic physicians as DOs will confuse people. However, I completely disagree with him. An example of a sentence using DOs in this way: DOs perform surgery, prescribe medications and attend medical school for four years just like their MD counterparts. It is clear from context in a sentence like this one that the holder of the degree is what is being described by the phrase DO or MD not the degree itself. Clearly, degrees do not perform surgery, prescribe medications, etc. Secondly, DO is potentially less confusing in terms of nomenclature since many people those relatively uninformed about DOs and MDs often conflate U.S. trained osteopathic physicians and foreign osteopaths which are not the same thing. The term DO would make this distinction clearer and lessen confusion. Third, replacing the phrase osteopathic physician, which in an article like this is used extensively, can shorten the article somewhat and make sentences more concise and vary the sentence structure to further improve the writing in addition to the added clarity that will result from my previously mentioned point. Additionally, professional organizations such as the AOA and AACOM use DO to refer to both the holder of the degree and the degree itself in the way I have asserted is acceptable. Here are some links to support this statement: http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-dos/what-is-a-do/Pages/default.aspx http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-dos/Pages/default.aspx http://www.aacom.org/resources/bookstore/cib/Documents/2012cib/2012cib-p21-23.pdf

Also, this same person has insisted in his edits that the plural of DO must be written as DO's which seems incorrect since the plural of MD that I have seen written most often is MDs. I have also found pages from professional DO organizations that write the plural of DO as DOs which is the form I have been advocating. Here are links demonstrating this: http://www.aacom.org/resources/e-news/ome/2011-03/Pages/LoanRepayment.aspx http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-dos/Pages/default.aspx http://www.osteopathic.org/osteopathic-health/about-dos/dos-around-the-world/Pages/default.aspx

So, to sum up my points, the term DO is synonymous with osteopathic physician and should be written as such to make a more parallel comparison with the term MD in this (and other) articles discussing/comparing DOs and MDs and editor's "personal preferences" should not be a deciding factor in an NPOV article. Here is the link to the osteopathic medicine in the united states talk page where you can see the discussion at the bottom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Osteopathic_medicine_in_the_United_StatesDoctorK88 (talk) 19:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

One last note-people on the user's page (the one who has been undoing the edits) has had people on his own talk page tell him in the past that DO is a more accessible/recognizable term to them and the purpose of wikipedia pages is to inform and serve as a resource of accessible and easily comprehensible information. DoctorK88 (talk) 19:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi. Many lay readers will not know what 'DO' stands for, therefore I think osteopathic physician is more clear and an easier understood term for our readers.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Whether "DOs" or "DO's" is preferred is probably addressed directly somewhere in the WP:MOS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Calling a practitioner "an MD" or "a DO" is equally wrong, even if it is a common error to do so. The granted degree is not the person holding it. Neither is it their license to practice. Our language should be as clear and accurate as we can make it. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

[Disclosure: I am a British doctor and I have limited exposure to the US healthcare system.] My understanding is that "MD" refers to the degree. Use of the abbreviation to denote the holder of the degree is colloquial and should be avoided in a formal setting such as an encyclopedia. I have looked at the American Osteopathic Medicine website, and I believe that they use this colloquial term to help engage with lay American readers who are probably already familiar with the colloquial use of "MD". Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:58, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect Literaturegeek,LeadSongDog I must strongly disagree with you both. DO professional organizations use the term this way and it is used this way commonly in both the DO and MD communities alike not to mention peer-reviewed research uses the terminology this way as do government websites such as the NIH. These titles can be used dually for the degree and for the person who has the degree. It should be clear from context that when an MD performs surgery that it is not the piece of paper doing the action but the holder of the degree. It is simply common sense and I really do not believe it requires further explanation for the lay reader beyond that. As long as a DO or an MD is defined at the beginning of the article, as it is in this particular article for DOs, then the point is moot. Furthermore, the article starts off by saying what a DO is by definition. The first sentence says "Osteopathic physicians also known as DOs" so I cannot agree that the confusion argument for lay readers is a legitimate one. Again, there will likely be more difficulty for lay readers to distinguish between foreign osteopaths and U.S. trained osteopathic physicians since the names are even more similar than what I am proposing. I have seen numerous posts expressing this confusion in lay readers. As for the claim that these terms are colloquial, that is false. For a term to be colloquial means it is used in everyday language, which it is, but not in more formal writing such as that of academics. However, I have seen these terms used in peer-reviewed literature which is a prime example of academic writing not to mention that professional organizations of these groups use these terms in exactly the way I have proposed. I would be happy to provide links to demonstrate this if you are not convinced, feel free to ask. Also, what do you think about the other point, the plural of DO?DoctorK88 (talk) 23:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you should go read WP:MOS#Abbreviations, which prohibits the use of the apostrophe in such circumstances.

Whether professional organizations and some (not all) publications use the informal "DO" to refer to licensed physicians is irrelevant. Wikipedia aims for a more formal tone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If we're being technical here, which I feel like you are being a bit technical here, DO is not a colloquial term. And I am the one advocating for the removal of the apostrophes from the plural of DO if I have not yet made that clear. That is the reason I asked it in the first place, because I removed those apostrophes and someone reverted it. So, just to be clear, consensus has not been reached yet and reversions should not occur until it is reached. The standard for a formal term is not for "all" papers to use it. The threshold is that the term is used in academia and government pages (which should not be ignored) which are indeed formal arenas designed to inform so I must disagree with you on a fundamental level WhatamIdoing. It is not irrelevant because it addresses Leadsongdog's claim that it is colloquial because I showed that by definition, it is not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/colloquial It is a term used in formal settings whether you agree or not and I have shown that. I would be happy to further demonstrate its presence in formal settings if necessary. DoctorK88 (talk) 04:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you are splitting hairs here, and I disagree, in my view there is a consensus which goes against your viewpoint. I am sorry about that, but that is how wikipedia works, Doctork88. It sucks some times and then we move on. :) I don't see why this has now went to dispute resolution board, when consensus seems clear to me unless I am missing something? :@(--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 13:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

"Dispute resolution board"? I had no idea. I have just checked WP:DRN and I see that DoctorK88 has indeed opened a case on the matter. I am assuming good faith as to DoctorK88's reason for not informing me. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:47, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes Axl, I mixed up the comment you left with one of the other users. I apologize for not having left a DRN notice on your talk page as well to give you notice, it was indeed an oversight on my part. And Literaturegeek I actually looked up consensus before you even wrote your post and what you said is incorrect. While I acknowledge that you followed the "be bold" principle (though the reversion you made had a factual inaccuracy in it) we are supposed to be working toward a compromise and trying to build consensus. To be frank with you, your responses have seemed antagonistic in tone. I hardly think that three or four users and one dissenter (myself) qualifies as consensus. You might say we have near unanimous consensus but I think we are still in the process of consensus building in which we try to persuade one another and reach a mutual compromise. We should have at least made it crystal clear on here that we had made a decision and reached a consensus and that we had finished our discussion and no such communication was given nor do I believe that phase is over, I believe we are still at the stage of presenting arguments and evidence since new objections have come up and I have addressed them. As for the discussion board, I addressed on there why I did that. It was because I got minimal response and the substance of the arguments presented was largely ignored not to mention the board seemed like a place to seek outside help. I am not apologetic about seeking outside help to have this dispute reach an expeditious conclusion. If that is unsatisfactory to you, I am sorry to hear that but I stand by my decision. DoctorK88 (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

DrK, the only "formal setting" that I'd like to see the abbreviation demonstrated in is other general-purpose encyclopedias. If "DO" is preferentially used in general-purpose encyclopedias, then I'll cheerfully withdraw my objections. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like you're changing your objection around quite a bit to me. That is not what the word colloquial means, being present in other general-purpose encyclopedias will only strengthen my point but I have disproven your claim that the word is colloquial nor does the word have to be used "preferentially" in formal settings, it just needs to be acceptable in formal settings such as academia which I showed and can continue to show. I have found additional articles from peer-reviewed journals that use the abbreviation DO. However, I am curious to know what general-purpose encyclopedias you are referring to. Can you give me a few examples? DoctorK88 (talk) 02:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If you care for the Free Dictionary ( I am relatively unfamiliar with it but it apparently is a dictionary and encyclopedia online) has this entry which uses DO to mean Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine and MD for Doctor of Medicine: http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/osteopath please let me know if that works or if you had other encyclopedias or places in mind and I will continue my search. DoctorK88 (talk) 02:40, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

No, you haven't proven that the abbreviation is formal. You've only said that it's used in certain kinds of publications.

Encyclopedia Brittanica is a general-purpose encyclopedia. Thefreedictionary.com is not an encyclopedia of any sort. Generally, if we're trying to figure out whether something has "encyclopedic tone" (the particular variant of formal tone best favored for the English Wikipedia), we look at what professionally edited general-purpose encyclopedias choose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's be clear here, I have shown that it is used in more than "certain kinds of publications." Please do not ignore the fact that I have shown that it is used not only in a formal setting such as peer-reviewed academic research but also in government pages and by professional organizations. These do have significance as well. And if you believe wikipedia, which I don't always, I take wikipedia articles with a grain of salt, it does say that thefreedictionary.com is a dictionary and encyclopedia but believe what you want. As for Encyclopedia Britannica, do you have any other recommendations? I do not have access to that encyclopedia online and I currently do not own a copy. Not to mention that Encyclopedia Britannica is not a make it or break it criterion for a word being formal or not. I have shown its use repeatedly in formal settings. It seems to me like you keep changing the stakes and the burden of proof higher and higher and just give another hoop to jump through after I have done so already. As for the "certain kinds of publications" theory, I have found quite a few that use it and from different journals. First it had to be formal and now the standard for formal only includes other general-purpose encyclopedias? I really don't think so. However, if you can provide me with other (perhaps accessible) suggestions for general-purpose encyclopedias, I will see what I can do. DoctorK88 (talk) 15:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Here is another encyclopedia article: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/osteopathy.aspx#1 However, it should be noted that I have also seen some encyclopedias fail to make a distinction between osteopathic physicians (American trained) and osteopaths (foreign trained) which are not the same thing. However, it is clear in the context of this encyclopedia article that DO is used to also describe the holder of the degree. This looks like a more reliable reference than thefreedictionary.com as well. And here is another reference: http://wiki.medpedia.com/Osteopathic_Physician_(D.O.) Medpedia was listed on the list of notable online encyclopedias on the wikipedia page of online encyclopedias and apparently it has ties with reputable universities. This looks to be professionally edited, enjoy! DoctorK88 (talk) 16:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

You will find many general-purpose encyclopedias listed at Category:General encyclopedias.

The Medpedia wiki entry is largely copied from the AOA's website, which is not an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia.com draws a distinction between their "topics" (which you cite) and their "encyclopedia articles" (which you don't cite). Their encyclopedia articles do not appear to use "DO" at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

An proper descriptive term such as "osteopathic physician" is generally preferable to an acronym (DO), which could refer to many things, see DO. If this article were written for a specific audience with some medical/technical knowledge, I would support the notion that DO might be preferable, however, since the article is written for a general, layman audience, the most unambiguous terms possible are preferable. This policy is consistent across WP:MED. Obviously, "physician" is highly preferable to the term "MD". Further, using the term "DO" widely creates confusion since in other regions of the world the degree "DO" refers to a different level of professional designation. Finally, the use of the term "osteopathic physician" is widely supported within the American Osteopathic profession, see AOA position on use of "osteopathic physician." Bryan Hopping ^T 23:29, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Hopping, I already addressed this point about DO on the article's page. It is a moot point because the term is defined at the beginning of the article very clearly so your concern over the ambiguity doesn't really seem valid. The article, as currently written, I'm sure can be understood by a broad reader base. There is nothing inherently more descriptive about the term osteopathic physician that makes that term any clearer than DO meaning Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine which it does say at the start of the article. Again, you can use the word physician to refer to both MDs and DOs but since people insist on discussing their differences even though they have more similarities than differences, this is the easiest way to distinguish between them without using the allopathic/osteopathic dichotomy which carries pejorative connotations that many in the MD community have voiced concerns and anger about. I have seen on your talk page that people have had such discussions with you. It is only your opinion that the term physician is "highly preferable" to MD but this is not a statement based on facts or evidence. I also disagree with you fundamentally about DO creating more confusion within lay readers since osteopathic physicians is a term close enough that many lay readers conflate this term with osteopath (foreign-trained) and I have seen people express this sentiment to you on your very own talk page so I cannot understand how you can honestly believe that when experience should have shown you otherwise. I never have said that the AOA does not support the use of the term osteopathic physician, I think the term is perfectly acceptable, however, you have said that the substitution of DO for this term is not acceptable, this is not the same thing. I have no issue with the term osteopathic physician, I am arguing for the validity of DO as a substitution for it. Again, it is only your opinion that a term such as "osteopathic physician" is a "proper descriptive term." So, once again, I must strongly disagree with your statement here Hopping. DoctorK88 (talk) 00:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

If you don't mind my asking; out of curiosity, why is this so important to you?--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 00:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

"Physician" is a noun; "osteopathic" is an adjective. The term "osteopathic physician" is a proper, English, descriptive term. "DO" is two letters that could refer to many things, i.e. its meaning is ambiguous. It is difficult to appreciate any rationale leading one to so passionately counter these facts. Res ipsa loquitur Bryan Hopping ^T 00:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, again, you are changing your objection/criteria here. First, you said it only needs to be present in general-purpose encyclopedias, and now you are saying that because it is in the "topics" and not the "articles" that it does not count. Frankly, when I looked at the website I did not even see that this distinction was made. Regardless, this encyclopedia is professionally edited as you requested. I sincerely have the feeling that no matter what evidence I present you are always going to find fault with it. Did you mean that the article derives its content from AACOM? I do not see any references in the topic page to the AOA nor do I see anything taken from that page though perhaps I am looking in the wrong area. The link you sent me led to where I looked. If you look under the first tab Gale's Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine you will see what I referenced. The link you sent me only had "encyclopedias" checked, not articles. When I chose to refine it to just articles they all said that the page no longer exists so I have absolutely no clue what you're talking about at all. Regardless, I have shown use in a general-purpose encyclopedia. I actually see in the description of the articles, even though they don't work when I try to open any of them, the title DO used to represent the holder of the degree. I have supplied the proof you asked for, repeatedly. Look more carefully at the article descriptions here: http://www.encyclopedia.com/searchresults.aspx?q=osteopathic&src=ART&refinesearch=true DoctorK88 (talk) 00:58, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm not changing the criterion. I'm telling you that the particular website you linked to contains many pages that the authors of that website plainly indicate are not part of their encyclopedia. Their non-encyclopedia topic pages are not part of their encyclopedia. Similarly, the pages they labeled "dictionary" are not part of their encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Sure seems like you're changing your criterion to me. Actually, the first page that pops up directly when you click the link I provided shows the usage as I described so I don't have a clue what you're talking about WhatamIdoing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoctorK88 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hopping, please read above. You keep rehashing the same point over and over again that DO can mean many things. Yes, it can. And at the very start of the article it is clearly defined what DO means in that article to eliminate confusion. There are lots of words like that in the English language. This is why we define what we mean at the beginning of the article, for clarity and to eliminate ambiguity. The same applies in this article. It is defined extremely clearly such that I am very confident that someone with a middle school reading level would be capable of understanding that DO, as it is being used in this article, refers to osteopathic physicians. I mean, the second sentence says, and I quote: "Osteopathic physicians, known as DOs, are licensed to practice medicine and surgery in all 50 states and are recognized in forty-seven other countries (a factual inaccuracy, it is 55 countries), including most Canadian provinces." Frankly, it does not get much clearer than that, Hopping. Please read what I write here carefully because I have addressed this point of yours numerous times now both here and on the article's talk page and repeating your point does not make it more valid. I have already demonstrated Hopping how DO is synonymous with osteopathic physician, which you have already agreed to on the article's talk page. You said the issue was not the validity of the term DO but when to use it. I'm quoting you here: "the issue is not IF the acronym should be used, but when." So, I feel like you are changing your argument considerably here in that respect. Literaturegeek, believe it or not, I really did not expect the substitution of DO for osteopathic physician to be so controversial. From my point of view, I feel like you guys reacted with a far greater magnitude to this than I ever would have expected. I have also consulted people in real life about this issue and they agree with me (about my position and the unexpected controversy generated) though I realize this is not evidence here, it is just anecdotal. I could ask the same question of you and the others, why you oppose this change so vehemently. Oh, and I feel like a broken record here, but please guys, please address the substance of the evidence/arguments presented above, this is crucial and has gone largely ignored. DoctorK88 (talk) 03:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I will return Monday, I will be busy tomorrow. Just letting you know you won't hear back tomorrow but nothing has changed on my end. DoctorK88 (talk) 03:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

There's no controversy here. This is an encyclopedia. This encyclopedia has a widely-accepted standard, namely that we use descriptive English prose in our articles whenever possible, avoiding acronyms, because all acronyms are ambiguous. That is not to say acronyms should never be used, rather the preference in this encyclopedia to use descriptive language (nouns and adjectives) over acronyms (letters and numbers).Bryan Hopping ^T 15:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Acronyms are not ambiguous when you clearly define them Hopping, that is the entire point which you are making me repeat. I am running out of ways to say this. The ambiguity in the term is eliminated when we clearly define it at the beginning of the article. I do not know how else to say it to make it clearer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DoctorK88 (talk • contribs) 02:45, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Defining an acronym at the beginning of an article is helpful, however it does not eliminate the ambiguity with regard to future use of the term. The preference is not use symbols or acronyms in articles whenever possible, but to use standard English terms. "DO" is two letters and therefore not standard English. "Osteopathic physician" is a noun and an adjective, therefore it is standard English. Bryan Hopping ^T 13:37, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Actually, unless otherwise defined in an article, defining the acronym does eliminate ambiguity within that article, Hopping. That is just how the English language works. You only need to go through a few articles to find abbreviations used that are defined at the beginning of the article and reader knowledge is then assumed when using that same abbreviation unless it is defined again as something else though most editors would use a different acronym to minimize confusion in readers, e.g. preventing the use of the acronym IC on the Interstitial Cystitis page for more than just the term interstitial cystitis. DO is clearly defined at the start and is acceptable. MD is used throughout the article, do you have an issue with that as well? What about the word an? That's two letters. DO is defined at the start of the article as equivalent to osteopathic physician. Regardless of your arguments that largely ignore the substance of the arguments I have been putting forth, I have read Mr. Stradivarius' comments and though I disagree with him on some things, he did have one suggestion that I found acceptable. He suggested that instead of collapsing osteopathic physician to DO that we instead expand the term MD which I think is fine. So, instead, I think we should change osteopathic physician to Doctors of osteopathic medicine and MD to Doctors of Medicine to improve clarity and go away from the allopathic/osteopathic dichotomy. I sincerely hope there are no objections to this because if there are then that's getting a little ridiculous. DoctorK88 (talk) 16:38, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Having failed to get support for his preference at the article's talk page, here, or at WP:DRN, DrK is now WP:Asking the other parent via an RFC at Talk:Osteopathic medicine in the United States#Nomenclature_DO_vs_Osteopathic_Physician_2.

DrK, I suggest that you read WP:How to lose, because the odds of this fourth effort producing a different outcome from the previous three is basically zero. IMO you're wasting your own time and everyone else's, and the RFC is the end of the line: there are no more dispute resolution forums available. If (when) the RFC concludes like the other discussions, you will only have three realistic choices left:

1. to figure out how to live with the decision made by the rest of the community,
2. to go away (mad if necessary), or
3. (should you choose to persist in your doomed campaign) to get blocked for being disruptive.

It's probably worth your time to decide which one of these is the response you would like to take. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

A couple of things WhatamIdoing. First of all, I am not "asking the other parent." It is true that you and the other editors with the exception of one have disagreed with me (unreasonably so in my opinion) but you have all also ignored the substance of my arguments and evidence presented by and large. Furthermore, I have also stated, several times, that I do not believe we have a representative view of the wikipedia community in this discussion yet with so few editors contributing. I initially hoped for far more voices to take part in this debate when I started discussing this on more public forums. I suggest WhatamIdoing that you not jump to conclusions and tone down the antagonistic tone in your responses. You are attempting to turn this into a personal argument and I refuse to participate in such nonsense. I am not being disruptive, I am presenting arguments/evidence for an issue that is worthy of discussion and I have been addressing objections to my proposal, so your assertions seems quite illogical to me. I have clearly stated my reasons for an Rfc. If you choose to ignore them, that's your decision but I won't stand for false accusations being thrown in my direction. If we're being frank here, I do not care about your personal opinion about whether or not I should discuss this issue. That is not a relevant factor to me. You are free to not participate in the discussion if you wish, that is your choice. If the Rfc shows that the wikipedia community by and large does not want this change, as I have said, if you read my comments carefully, which you clearly didn't, then you would have seen that I said I would drop the issue and accept the baffling resistance to such a slight change in nomenclature. I urge you to adjust your tone and work in a way that is constructive so that we may all find a solution that everyone finds agreeable. You have been very resistant to doing this from the start judging from your comments. I do not know if you have a personal issue about this issue but you should do your best to check that at the door. This is a forum for debating the issue, not personal attacks. Additionally, I have seen Mr. Stradivarius' closing comments on the DRN and one suggestion of his seemed acceptable to me though I disagreed wholly with the rest of his statement about the persuasiveness of certain arguments and I told him so. The suggestion that seemed acceptable was to expand the term M.D. instead of collapsing that of osteopathic physician which seems fine. Perhaps it would be better to change osteopathic physician to Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (a more descriptive and modern time in my opinion and one I sincerely doubt anyone will find objectionable, if you do, I think you're being a little ridiculous at this point) and M.D. to Doctor of Medicine. I think this solution will serve as the closest thing to a compromise with the best possible outcome for all parties and will address concerns of clarity, recognition, formality, etc. I would appreciate hearing what you all think about this, in a calm, respectful manner. Thank you. DoctorK88 (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Is the new request to change "osteopathic physician" to "doctor of osteopathic medicine" ? Bryan Hopping ^T 22:40, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

No, that is not the new request exactly. More like a modification of the original proposal in addition to the original proposal to see how people feel about that. I'm going off of something Mr. Stradivarius said because he seemed very reasonable to me and it seemed like a nice middle ground though I see that, as usual, WhatamIdoing has takes issue with it. Regarding the difference between holders of these degrees and those who can are also licensed, we can simply add a sentence that informs readers that not all Doctors of Medicine and Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, the holders of these degrees, are necessarily licensed to practice medicine. That should eliminate any confusion stemming from this area. DoctorK88 (talk) 02:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

This has the unfortunate side effect of making the statement be about anyone who holds the degree, rather than about licensed physicians. Degree holders without a license are not legally permitted to practice medicine, and thus some statements would be materially false. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

DrK, unlike you, I really don't care about the subject one way or the other. My primary goal at this point is to introduce you to the reality of working on the English Wikipedia. Sometimes you "lose", even when you believe your arguments and evidence to be compelling and your opponents to be baffling, ignorant, thoughtless idiots. This is very likely to be one of those times for you.

Here's another fact that you need to know: You've already had a dozen different editors tell you that DO is not the right choice. That's not "so few editors contributing"; that's a high level of input for a single dispute. Look over the rest of this page, and count up the number of people commenting on any single topic. Look over a typical noticeboard like WP:RSN or WP:ELN and see how many people comment on any single question. See how many more people have rejected your "arguments and evidence" compared to those other discussions? The English Wikipedia may have thousands of editors, but very, very, very few comment in discussions like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, obviously that's complete nonsense. I think you should use Mr. Stradivarius as a model of how to speak to other people on wikipedia. He was quite professional and though I disagreed with what he had to say, there was nothing in his words that had a hostile tone or unnecessary negativity towards others. Your attitude on the other hand has been very transparent in your comments. Even this last one is very rude. And it's difficult to "lose" an argument when people do not address the substance of your arguments. Actually, I have not had a dozen, though we're close and one person did agree with me and people objected for different reasons from each other if you read carefully. Again, I addressed these concerns with logical arguments and evidence and that was ignored for the most part. Seriously, tone down the antagonistic rhetoric. Even now you still do not sound like you are trying to work in a constructive manner with me and the other editors to find a solution. People may have rejected arguments and evidence but on what grounds? Exactly. Very little in response was given to show why the arguments were rejected. That is how debate works. And I know how wikipedia works just fine, though I do have to admit I have some very deep reservations about its flawed policies. That being said, most other editors I have encountered on here have been civil in tone which I do not believe you have been from the start. It does not matter how many people have talked about this particular issue compared to other issues on this specific page. Either way, it is not representative of the wikipedia community's opinion. That being said, how many editors you need exactly to constitute a representative view seems unclear to me based on wikipedia's policies, one of many I think is deeply flawed. However, none of this is an excuse for you to be unprofessional and not stick to the issues and attempt to make it personal. You say you aren't but the rhetoric/tone of your words speaks volumes and it says different. I am quite familiar with reality and with the way wikipedia works, thanks but don't do me any favors that I don't ask you to do WhatamIdoing. I would prefer not to receive unsolicited "advice" from you which obviously does not have genuine friendly intent behind it. And I find it unbelievable that yet again that even when I extend an olive branch and make a very sound compromise offer that it is immediately shot down, more importantly, without a counteroffer or modification offered. Simply remarkable and very unfortunate.DoctorK88 (talk) 01:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I would be of the opinion, that it is you who is ignoring evidence and logical arguments.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

How do you figure? I have addressed objections made and countered them with logical arguments and evidence. I have jumped through the hoops people have asked me to but there just seems to be no satisfying any of you. What arguments did I ignore exactly and not address at all? I have heard many "subjective opinions" out of the other editors but I have yet to see people provide links and logical arguments to substantiate their claims. I have heard other editors say it will be confusing to other readers (an opinion, in fact literaturegeek that was you who said that first), wikipedia policy (I acknowledge that abbreviations should be avoided if "unwarranted" but what does it mean when an abbreviation is "unwarranted"?) I have addressed whether or not the term is colloquial and shown that by definition it is not even though the proof I showed was not up to other editors "expectations." I have shown that DO and osteopathic physician do mean the same thing and that yes, DO can mean the degree, it can also be used to mean Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and I addressed the claims of ambiguity of the term with the response that it is clearly defined at the beginning of the article what the term DO means within the context of that article. I have also disagreed about the issue of whether or not we reached consensus but I did address it. I just scanned the entirety of this whole discussion. Please let me know which arguments/evidence I failed to address and I will address it, Literaturegeek. It really is the other way around, if you don't believe that, that is okay, but that is what I believe based on what I just read (this whole discussion). Aside from that, I have also been civil to other editors here and do not feel that all editors here have returned the same courtesy. I feel like a broken record here but let's stick to the issues, shall we? And instead of simply shooting down others' ideas, perhaps make counteroffers, modifications, revisions, changes, etc to work towards a compromise. DoctorK88 (talk) 02:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I have been an editor on Wikipedia for years. I can honestly say I've yet to see anything quite like this. Among the numerous reasons why this is so unusual, one stands out as particularly noteworthy. The acronym "DO" is already used in the article, several dozen times, alongside and in conjunction with the term "osteopathic physician." As anyone with knowledge of the topic would wholeheartedly affirm, it would literally be impossible to discuss this topic without using both terms. As per well established Wikipedia guidelines, and quite frankly common sense, the term "osteopathic physician" is used more frequently for clarity. Nevertheless, the use of the term DO is unavoidable, as reflected by its long-accepted usage in the good article in question. In other words, this entire controversy, manufactured single-handedly by "DoctorK88", can only be interpreted as either a ruse of epic proportions, or an episode of cognitive dysfunction so profound, it should hereafter be referred to by its own acronym, CD. Bryan Hopping ^T 03:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hopping, a couple of things. One, that was incredibly rude. For a physician, I really think you have a great deal of maturing to do in terms of how you interact with other people. I did not manufacture a controversy here. I made a suggestion and received very vigorous objections to it which I responded to with equal vigor. It is not "impossible" as you say to discuss osteopathic medicine without the term osteopathic physician and I have NEVER said that I want the term osteopathic physician completely stricken from the article, so please do not put words in my mouth. I am advocating for DO as a valid substitute for osteopathic physician but I have acknowledged (repeatedly) that there is nothing wrong with the term osteopathic physician itself, you and the other editors are saying that my proposal is what is not acceptable to all of you. There is no ruse and there is no cognitive dysfunction (a very rude accusation sir, you really should be ashamed of yourself for attempting a personal attack like that). And I know people in real life who use the term DO more frequently than that of osteopathic physician so your claim of common sense is not true, it really depends on who you ask which term is used preferentially. Not to mention that I take exception to your implication that I have no common sense, especially when I have previously shown that arguments you have proposed are moot. It really is not important how long you have been an editor on wikipedia, that does not make your arguments any more persuasive or logical. And your comment displays yet another egregious attempt to avoid working to finding a mutually acceptable solution. I feel like my words are no longer registering because I have said this so many times and nothing changes with the tone in your responses. In one ear and out the other. Please try to refrain from attempting to engage me in a personal argument, I am not going to have that argument with you, Hopping. Once again, let's stick to the issues and be mature. Okay? Great. DoctorK88 (talk) 04:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

DoctorK88, do you feel the community is required to find a solution that is acceptable to you?--Taylornate (talk) 04:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

No, but I do expect respect and courtesy from other editors and for them to keep the discussion to the issue at hand and not resort to personal attacks. I am trying to establish collaboration/cooperation but regrettably, I am encountering a great deal of resistant, antagonistic behavior. I never said a solution that is solely acceptable to me Taylornate. So please do not put words in my mouth. If you read what I wrote carefully, I said a mutually acceptable solution/a solution we are all satisfied with. DoctorK88 (talk) 04:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

If everyone else is satisfied, to ask for a mutually acceptable solution is to ask for a solution that is acceptable to you. Do you think the community is required to satisfy everyone?--Taylornate (talk) 05:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Not "everyone" else is satisfied as you say. Especially considering the debate has not concluded. And actually, the concept of consensus on wikipedia is ill-defined and people far more familiar with wikipedia than myself have agreed that it is quite a vague policy. I understand that it is the current policy and acknowledge that. Regardless, the point of these things is to work cooperatively. No, I don't think the community is required to satisfy everyone, I do think however that the community should try to find a solution that satisfies as many as editors as possible. I do not feel like the other editors are trying to do that. Instead of trying to work towards a compromise they have been consistently shooting down suggestions without backing up their claims, not making counteroffers, modifications, etc. of the idea, basically contributing to the process in a constructive way. That is what I am saying. To say that everyone is satisfied seems like a big oversimplification to me when only a few of us have spoken on here. That is why I put out an Rfc, to get a much larger variety of opinions. I have already stated repeatedly above that if it is clear that the wikipedia community in general decides it does not agree with the proposal then I will accept that decision even if it is to my befuddlement and I find it very strange. Regardless, the point of a discussion here is to work on ideas and be constructive, and it is certainly not to wage uncalled for personal attacks. Understand that this all came from my proposal of a relatively minor change in nomenclature. That proposal was met with some very harsh responses when I did not just blindly accept their objections and actually defended my proposal and gave reasons why I thought it should be put in place. I came here to have a discussion and while of course everyone wants to get their own way in wikipedia and agree wholly with what they have to say, I am not so stubborn and inflexible as to be close minded to the idea of compromise and working toward a solution that satisfies everyone. Again, I did say everyone, yes, including me, but also them and that is important. The point is I am making adjustments and offering alternatives and being as constructive as I can Taylor. That is my gripe. Rude behavior on here is absolutely unacceptable and counterproductive. DoctorK88 (talk) 06:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

As I said, your "proposal" has already been adopted. The acronym "DO" is already used in the article, dozens of times. Bryan Hopping ^T 13:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

" I do think however that the community should try to find a solution that satisfies as many as editors as possible. "

— DrK88

There is a solution that satisfies over 90% of editors.

" I am not so stubborn and inflexible as to be close minded to the idea of compromise and working toward a solution that satisfies everyone. "

— DrK88

I would like to assume good faith, but I actually don't believe that.

I await your next wall of text rebuttal. Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:37, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

There's no need to quote me in the future. I know what I said. Yeah, it satisfies you guys (again, most of whom I maintain never tried to work with me constructively in the first place, Axl you were an exception to this) however, as I have said before, altogether we make up an extremely limited sample size and we are not representative of wikipedia's community view here. When I say I am not so inflexible as to reject a decision that befuddles me because I find it wholly illogical, I am referring to one with a wider variety of opinions included which is what I have been trying to achieve for a while now with the Rfc, etc. Not to mention that the bulk of the arguments/evidence I presented earlier went largely ignored from the start. Furthermore, even if you believe that most editors would be satisfied with the solution you guys in particular want, it is not a satisfactory excuse (I know you did not say this Axl but other editors seem to kind of sweep this issue under the rug) for the earlier behavior exhibited. DoctorK88 (talk) 15:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I disagree with the changes proposed by DoctorK88 for reasons which have already been adequately summarised. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why such an insignificant issue has dragged on for so long and wasted so many people's time. I see no problem with the article as it is. Watermelon mang (talk) 15:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it has dragged on. Every attempt I have made to expedite the process has been met with disapproval and quite a bit of resistance. The majority of my responses to objections were ignored Watermelon and editors continued to put the burden of proof on me and said unless I provided this evidence or that evidence then their objection stood. That is what dragged this out. I have been calling for more cooperative behavior to expedite this process for quite a while now. When I have made alternative suggestions they have been shot down with no counteroffers made or modifications suggested. The article still needs some work. The allopathic/osteopathic terminology is outdated and I think we should move away from it which is why I also made the alternative suggestion of changing osteopathic physician to Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and DO to Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and MD to Doctor of Medicine and including a sentence that informs readers that not all holders of these medical degrees are licensed physicians. Like I said before, I never expected such a benign proposal of nomenclature change to generate such a harsh response. DoctorK88 (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

DK, what you see as an attempt at expediting, I think most others see as dragging something out that has already ended. You need to understand that while relatively few people have commented, they are representative of the people who would care enough to comment. Most of the thousands of editors just aren't interested. What you've seen here is the full extent of the community view.--Taylornate (talk) 15:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

DoctorK88, people did respond, and the general consensus was strongly against the DO abreviation. Your dragging it out with so much discussion over this 'DO issue' is approaching disruptive editor levels, in particular WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Your proposal was benign, your dragging the benign issue was not benign but disruptive by wasting people's time. With regard to changing "osteopathic physician to Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and DO to Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine and MD to Doctor of Medicine and including a sentence that informs readers that not all holders of these medical degrees are licensed physicians", I would say preliminarily that I would be fine with that, but I would like see what others have to say (pros and cons) about this change, before comitting a support or oppose view.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 16:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that is unnecessarily wordy and I don't understand why DK thinks osteopathic physician is outdated. I would support using allopathic physician instead of MD when used in conjunction with osteopathic physician. I think that would be the most clear to readers.--Taylornate (talk) 16:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

We've discussed this before, and using allopathic to describe conventional medicine has always been opposed. The term is incorrect on its face, was originally intended to be insulting, is offensive to a significant fraction of non-DO-holding physicians (who may have MDs, MBBSs, or other degrees), and is easily confused with the alternative medicine branch of allopathy (homeopathy uses diluted onion juice to treat watery eyes; allopathy uses the same diluted onion juice to treat dry eyes). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting—I didn't know that.--Taylornate (talk) 20:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Since I got so many responses I will address each one individually. First, Taylornate. I did not drag this out, I disagree (now and then) that consensus was reached with such a small amount of wikipedia users, if you read above, that is why I said we should continue the discussion. So few people are not representative of the wikipedia community, you and I disagree at a fundamental level there. People who "care enough to comment" is not who this wikipedia is for. It is for everybody, not for the interested few. This is not the full extent of the community view, you and I are not going to agree there, period.

Literaturegeek, you are incorrect here. People did not respond to most of the arguments and evidence I put forth with logical counterarguments showing why what I said was invalid, etc. All I received were comments like oh, no, you haven't proven your point or oh, no, you've only shown it in a few sources, now that's not good enough, etc. Most people did not say something to the effect of "you're arguments are incorrect, or illogical because..." and show why that was the case. Yes, people "responded" to me, but not in a constructive way that discredited my arguments, most of them were side stepped or we just disagreed fundamentally but after reviewing these discussions of ours I see little effort to provide evidence that renders my arguments invalid and shows my evidence to be false. So, again, we are going to disagree on a fundamental level here, Literaturegeek (not surprising to me, we have disagreed the entire time). How taylornate, is one additional sentence wordy? It's not. Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine is not a big difference from osteopathic physician in terms of "wordiness" and I did not say it needs to be used for the entirety of the article, I was suggesting more along the lines of using it to define the term at the earlier parts of the article. I was not disruptive at all Literaturegeek, I actually looked up wikipedia's definition of disruptive and our debate did not fall under one single category of it. I would contend that the disruptive behavior was yours, WhatamIdoing's and Hopping's with your rude, antagonistic tones (from the start). Feel free to continue discussing the Doctor of Medicine/Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine substitution instead of the shift of osteopathic physician to DO, I am now washing my hands of the whole thing. I have more important things to attend to, this has become a drag on my time and if I can be frank, I am exhausted from dealing with editors such as yourselves (most of you, not all of you) who I find to be unreasonable and uncooperative (again, from the start, not from a dragged out debate which would have gone much faster had people directly addressed my arguments and evidence). I am mainly disappointed in the behavior exhibited by many of the other editors here, not angry or sad, just disappointed and now a bit tired. There is no need to respond to this last response of mine because I will not see it. Do what you like, if you are satisfied with your illogical arguments, most of which I have proven to be false, then so be it. I do hope that in the future you can work with me in a collaborative and cooperative fashion. Make no mistake, I am not leaving mad, I am just finished with this debate since the discussion is no longer going anywhere and you have become very sidetracked with whether or not we should have the debate instead of the issue itself despite my attempts to try and get you to focus on the issue at hand. The silver lining was to see that there are reasonable, professional editors such as Axl, Mr. Stradivarius and Pesky. I sincerely hope you use them as models for your interactions with other editors in the future, best of luck to you all in whatever you are doing. Consider the matter, on my end, officially closed. You can continue to talk about Doctor of Medicine/Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine replacement of MD and DO, respectively if you wish. I will no longer be participating. Consider me retired.

Do you think that some of your criticisms of other editors could apply to you? I have read over my brief interactions above with you and I believe I was actually quite calm and reasonable when typing to you. Anyway, no worries, good luck.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 19:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Anticancer genes

Hello. Could anyone take a look at this article, please? I tried to wikify the article a bit, but I have a very little knowledge in this area. Is the information correct? Thanks for any help/verification. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 17:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's correct. Since the genes are doubtless being delivered through viral vectors, it might be worth considering a merge to oncolytic virus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking this out, WhatamIdoing. I'm afraid I don't have the competence to comment on the possible merger. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 20:25, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

I am not convinced. While "Grimm" does use the phrase "Anticancer gene" with this meaning, it is not widespread in the literature. The majority of references to "Anticancer gene" are usually in the context of "gene therapy", such as this article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Help requested: Ulceration

Ulceration is currently a disambiguation page, but it appears to run afoul of WP:DABCONCEPT, as it only lists different kinds of ulcers. Can someone here write a general-purpose article on the topic of ulceration, for which the examples provided would appear in context? Cheers! bd2412 T 18:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

It might make a decent WP:SETINDEX. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Vitamin D dosages

I had a help question in the irc channel (wikipedia-en-help) saying: "In the section of vitamin D, the amounts listed in the appropriate dosages are taken from an article from Health Canada which I believe to be in error. The units are given as micrograms per litre. In all other sources I have seen they are reported as nanograms per litre." She gave this source as an example: http://www.uptodate.com/contents/patient-information-vitamin-d-deficiency. Another helper replied "the serums levels are measured in nanograms..(25 hydroxy vit d) not the supplemental dosage.. supplemental daily doses are in micrograms or international units (IU)." I have no expertise here, but I thought I'd pass it on to you guys just to make sure that the article isn't confusing the two. Thanks! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 23:33, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

The helper is correct. The article looks fine. Axl ¤ [Talk] 00:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

A redirect for discussion

As mentioned on Inside Health, the Radio Four programme presented by Mark Porter, the term coeliac disease refers to something other than two terms which often get used as synonyms - gluten sensitivity and gluten intolerance. I was distressed to see, therefore, that the term gluten intolerance got redirected to coeliac disease. This has now gone to Wikipedia: Redirects for discussion. I think that people in this WikiProject might have the most knowledge on this matter, so I shall leave message here. If any one has specialist knowledge of coeliac disease, it would be good if s/he could leave his or her comments on Wikipedia: Redirects for discussion. Thank you in advance for any help, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Could we discuss this on Talk:Coeliac disease, where you have also started a thread? JFW | T@lk 22:37, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did - as you say - start on the talk page of coeliac disease. The ideal place to discuss this was Wikipedia: Redirects for discussion, where this one did get - and it appears to have been settled, we now have gluten intolerance redirecting to gluten sensitivity. Thank you for your comments here, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 09:29, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Please refer to discussion here to see papers I provided MaenK.A._Talk 09:12, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Eyes please

Discussion at Talk:Bexarotene re the need for MEDRS. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Endothelium article edit

In my opinion, the endothelium has, for too long been, overlooked and generally ignored when it is the originating organ in most CVD events. What I would like to see is an article that is accessible to the average person without medical training as well as being useful to the professional. Next, people, professionals too, need to know that to take care of their heart, they have to take care of their endothelium. Third, the present article does not have a history section and I think that would be an improvement. Fourth, the present article mixes disfunction and function. It seems to me that it would also be useful for people to sort that out and understand causation. I would greatly appreciate working with anyone who had an interest and would understand Wikispeak far better than I for I an a novice in this nunnery.Endofix (talk) 23:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The article looks like a stub and could sure use some improvement. Since you are still learning to move around I think it would be the best if we would make a copy of the article in your userspace where you could work on it without having to worry about breaking anything - would you like that idea? Richiez (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Significant additions to Depersonalization and Depersonalization disorder

Hi, I'm not sure if these meet WP:MEDRS. It's above my pay grade, as I just copyedited these articles. Also, it appears to be the same content added to each; it might only be appropriate in one of them.

• Depersonalization disorder
• Depersonalization

A check would be great. Cheers! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 18:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:United States Education Program

The program has several courses starting soon. I've listed some that may impact articles covered by this wikiproject.

• Science & Pseudoscience in Psychology - 15 students.
• Traumatic Memories and Repression - 20 students
• Industrial psychology - 30 students
• Cognitive psychology - 27 students
• Cognitive psychology - 30 students
• Cognition - 30 students
• Psychology of language - 17 students
• Introduction to psychology - 200 students
• History and systems of psychology - 12 students
• Language development - 110 students
• Research in personality - 25 students
• Personality psychology - 25 students
• Personality psychology - 13 students
• Medical Missionaries - 20 students

Most seem to be attached to Wikiproject Psychology. Is someone from Wikiproject Medicine liaising with them on article choice? --Anthonyhcole (talk) 10:42, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Not that I am aware of. It would be good if someone can reach out to the profs in question and offer medicine specific guidance. I am away for the next few weeks.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment requested

There is an RfC at Talk:Circumcision#RfC: how should the lead summarise positions of medical associations?. Input would be appreciated. Jakew (talk) 21:08, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Dissociative identity disorder popular vs scientific history

Hi everyone. Brand new editor here, about a month, first time doing something like this so excuse my mistakes please. As seen here, WLU, Jlfosternz and I have been very actively collaborating on the DID article very successfully and we are discussing a unique phenomena with DID history which is that there is significant cultural history that is mostly independent of the scientific/research history, and vice versa. Additionally, both of these areas have hot contention from two very opposite sides who mostly refuse to even cite or in some cases even acknowledge the existence of the other. This makes for a very busy and disordered history section, and a big general challenge for the article itself (we are working hard on it though!). We all agree something needs to be done with the history section, but are not sure how exactly to do it appropriately and aren't sure of any precedent for this kind of thing. Any help or ideas are appreciated, thank you. Forgotten Faces (talk) 22:52, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Plantar fasciitis

More eyes, please on plantar fasciitis. There appears to be a coordinated effort by some IPs to add positive, remove negative information with regards to extracorporeal shockwave therapy to the page. More eyes on the page/voices on the talk page would be helpful. Yobol (talk) 18:41, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to watch this page, thank you! NCurse _work 07:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

MMR vaccine controversy

Rename article? See Talk:MMR vaccine controversy#Suppression of dissenting voices.3F. SandyGeorgia (Talk)

FepA

I tagged this article, FepA, mostly because it is too technical for the literate reader who has no knowledge within this field WP:NOT#JARGON. There is no way for me to vouch for the accuracy of the article. Also it looks like the vocabulary has been taken from some academic journal article, but I am unable to determine if this is so. I was wondering if someone from this project can take a look at this article for accuracy and maybe make sure it is not a copyright violation. Thanks in advance. ---- Steve Quinn (talk) 19:31, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Seems like a good article to me. Technically specific where appropriate and discursive down below where it is useful.Terry Dwyer (talk) 13:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Phew, it's heavy going! Perhaps the author should read WP:MTAA. I skimmed the reference abstracts, and the text seems to be accurate. Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:24, 17 February 2012 (UTC)